News article:

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 / Updated

 Two Ohio men wrongly accused of murder experienced freedom for the first time in nearly four decades on Friday morning, but said they don’t harbor bitterness over their unjust imprisonment.

 A Cleveland judge on Wednesday had dropped all charges against Ricky Jackson, 57, and Wiley Bridgeman, 60, allowing for the pair’s release.

 Jackson was 19 when he was convicted along with Bridgeman and Bridgeman’s brother, Ronnie, in the 1975 shooting death and robbery of Harold Franks, a Cleveland-area money order salesman.

 Testimony from a 12-year-old witness helped point to Jackson as the triggerman and led a jury to convict all three. Ronnie Bridgeman, now known as Kwame Ajamu, was paroled from prison in 2003.

 The witness, Edward Vernon, now 53, recanted his testimony last year, saying he was coerced by detectives, according to Cuyahoga County court documents. Vernon wrote in a 2013 affidavit that he never saw the murder take place, but he was told by detectives that if he didn’t testify against Jackson, his parents would be arrested.

 Vernon said he confided in a pastor several years after meeting with Bridgeman, and the pastor encouraged him to reach out to the Innocence Project. Vernon wrote that he had “been waiting to tell the truth about this for a long time.”

 “A lot of people think I should be mad,” said Jackson, but “in ’75, he was a 12-year-old-kid.” Jackson said “it took a lot of courage” for the witness to recant his statement.

 The Ohio Innocence Project, which took up the case, said Jackson had been the longest-held U.S. prisoner to be exonerated.

 Jackson was originally sentenced to death, but that sentence was vacated because of a paperwork error. The Bridgeman brothers remained on death row until Ohio declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1978.

 “One of them came within 20 days of execution before Ohio ruled the death penalty unconstitutional” said Mark Godsey, director of the Ohio Innocence Project.

 “The bitterness is over with,” said Wylie Bridgeman during his first moments of freedom on Friday.

 Jackson agreed. “I had plans for my life,” but “time is just something that you can't get back so I'm not going to really cry about it,” he said.

 While Ohio provides compensation for those who are wrongfully imprisoned, everyone is not guaranteed money. The Ohio Innocence Project has set up a fund for Jackson.

 A story published in Scene Magazine in 2011 first raised new questions about the murder and whether Jackson and the Bridgeman brothers actually committed the crime.

 Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in court Tuesday that without an eyewitness there was not much of a case. “The state is conceding the obvious," he said, according to Reuters.

 NBC News' Emmanuelle Saliba contributed to this report. Reuters also contributed. ||||| CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ricky Jackson left his life behind bars today, walking out of the Justice Center after spending 39 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

 "Finally, finally,'' he said, as he walked past guards and into the arms of one of his attorneys, Brian Howe. Jackson smiled and met well-wishers and childhood friends. As he left the Justice Center, he took in his first breaths of fresh air, placing his hands to his face in shock.

 "It's extraordinary,'' he told reporters earlier. "I'm glad to be out.... It has been an emotional roller coaster. The English language doesn't have the words to express how I'm feeling right now.''

 He repeatedly thanked the Ohio Innocence Project, and he thanked county prosecutors for showing the integrity to drop the case. Jackson also had kind words for Eddie Vernon, the boy whose testimony helped convict him in 1975. Vernon recanted his testimony, saying he lied to help police and was then manipulated by detectives.

 "I don't hate him,'' Jackson said. "He's a grown man today, he was just a boy back then.''

 Jackson wished Vernon the best and said, "It took a lot of courage to do what he did.''

 Jackson, 57, has been in prison since he was 18. He has served more time behind bars than anyone who has ever been released from prison on a wrongful conviction, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

 This week, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty dropped the charges against Jackson, who was seeking a new trial. The move came after the witness who put Jackson and two other men behind bars – Vernon, who was 12 at the time of the murder – recanted and admitted that he had lied to judges and juries about the men's role in the slaying of Harold Franks.

 McGinty told Common Pleas Judge Richard McMonagle that the case against Jackson had evaporated after Vernon – and several others who were with him that day – testified about his lies earlier this week. Vernon said he simply wanted to help police. He said a friend gave him the names, and Vernon told police he saw the slaying.

 In fact, he said, he wasn't close, as the school bus he rode was not near the crime scene, the Fairmont Cut-Rite on Fairhill Road, which is now Stoke Boulevard. And later, detectives fed him information on the case, he said. The web of lies led to juries to convict him and two others, Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman. Wiley Bridgeman had remained in prison, while his brother was released after serving more than 25 years in prison.

 Wiley Bridgeman was released later this morning.

 Attorneys Terry Gilbert and David Mills represent the brothers. They also had asked for a new trial, based on Vernon's new testimony. Today, Common Pleas Judge David Matia dropped the case against one of the brothers, Wiley Bridgeman. His brother, Ronnie, is seeking to have his record cleared.

 Authorities said two men attacked Franks as he walked to the store. They beat him, threw acid in his face and one of the men shot him twice with a .38-caliber. The shooter also fired a round that hit Anna Robinson, the wife of the store's owner. The men stole Franks' briefcase and fled to a waiting car. Authorities accused Jackson of shooting Franks.

 There was no evidence linking the three men to the crime. Vernon said that once he told authorities the names of the three and the fact that he saw the slaying, Cleveland police fed him information about the crime and what happened.

 Vernon came forward after he spoke with his pastor, the Rev. Anthony Singleton of the Emmanuel Christian Center, last year. He admitted that he never saw anything; he said he instantly became relieved. The admission came two years after Scene Magazine wrote about the case and questioned Vernon's testimony.

 McGinty's office will not charge Vernon. He had claimed that he hid the lies for years, saying he detectives told him that if he mentioned what he did, they would put his parents in prison for perjury.

 Ronnie Bridgeman watched McMonagle release Jackson in a brief court hearing this morning. Bridgeman was in tears.

 "I can't explain it,'' Bridgeman said. "This is great.''

 McMonagle gave Jackson one last piece of advice: "Life is filled with small victories, and this is a big one. Know who your friends are because everybody will want a piece of you. You better trust the people who you can trust.''

 Plain Dealer reporter Rachel Dissell contributed to this report. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– After nearly 40 years in prison, a man convicted in a 1975 Cleveland slaying has walked out of the county jail as a free man. Ricky Jackson, 57, was dismissed from the Cuyahoga County Jail and walked out of the adjoining courthouse this morning about an hour after a judge dismissed his case. The dismissal came after the key witness—then a 13-year-old boy—at trial against Jackson and brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman recanted last year and said Cleveland police detectives coerced him into testifying that the three killed businessman Harry Franks on the afternoon of May 19, 1975. About two hours later, Wiley Bridgeman was also dismissed; Ronnie Bridgeman, who now goes by the name Kwame Ajamu, got out on parole in 2003, NBC News reports. "Finally, finally," Jackson said as he left the Cleveland Justice Center Complex, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. Jackson, who was just 18 when he entered prison, offered gratitude toward the Ohio Innocence Project (which says that of all exonerated US prisoners, he spent the most time behind bars) and county prosecutors and absolved Eddie Vernon, the boy whose testimony helped put him away. "I don't hate him," he tells the Plain Dealer. "He's a grown man today, he was just a boy back then. It took a lot of courage to do what he did." Because when it comes down to it, he's just happy to finally be free. "The English language doesn't have the words to express how I'm feeling right now.''


Write an article based on this summary:

– The Obama administration will likely include a provision in next month’s budget that imposes fees on banks in an effort to make back some of the taxpayer money lost on the bailout and close the record deficit. Politico has it that a transaction tax is not on the table; while the Wall Street Journal notes that such a tax would require international cooperation. A tax on compensation is considered too easy to skirt. The goal is to structure a fee that newly flush banks can't pass on to still-struggling consumers.

Text Size:

 Exclusive: Obama budget likely to include (as yet undetermined) fee on banks to help taxpayers recoup cost of bailout -- Romer still sees recovery beginning in spring

 By: & & on January 11, 2010 @ 5:57 AM

 EXCLUSIVE: Top administration officials tell Morning Money that President Obama’s budget, to be unveiled next month, is likely to include a fee on banks designed to recoup some of the cost taxpayers incurred in the bailout, which specified that the U.S. government should be made whole. This will stop short of a financial transactions tax, and the administration has decided that a tax on compensation packages would be too easily evaded. The officials said the final approach has not been locked down. The chief goal is a fee that is not easily passed along.

 BREAKING: New York Fed general counsel Thomas C. Baxter writes in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “I write to clarify that matters relating to AIG securities law disclosure were not brought to the attention of Mr. Geithner. … In my judgment as the New York Fed’s chief legal officer, disclosure matters of this nature did not warrant the attention of the president. Further, Mr. Geithner played no role in, and had no knowledge of, the disclosure deliberations and communications referenced in those e-mails.” We posted Baxter’s letters to Issa and Chairman Townes (misspelled on letter)

 FROM ISSA’S RESPONSE LAST NIGHT: “Mr. Baxter statement’s provides a very short and narrow account that addresses specific e-mails and related deliberations but not larger questions about Secretary Geithner’s role in approving payments for AIG counterparties.”

 WHITE HOUSE AND HILL HAVE GEITHNER’S BACK, Bloomberg’s James Rowley and Edward Chen: “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner retains the confidence of President Barack Obama as he faces questions … Aides to top congressional Democrats also said that Geithner has support on Capitol Hill as lawmakers prepare hearings into why the New York Fed in December 2008 asked [AIG] to scale back disclosures of the government’s $182.3 billion bailout of the New York-based insurer. … Asked yesterday for comment, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he stood by his earlier statements that the president had full confidence in Geithner. Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, said ‘Secretary Geithner enjoys the strong support of the Senate Democratic caucus.’”

 Good Monday morning. Hope everyone got to see the 96-point madness in Arizona. Redeemed a weekend’s worth of snooze-worthy football.

 DRIVING THE WEEK: Bonus season kicks off as banks begin informing employees of their number while justifying the huge payouts to an angry public and an election year Congress … The awards just happen to coincide with the first hearings on Wednesday and Thursday of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Wednesday’s hearing will include CEOs Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America and John Mack, chairman and former CEO of Morgan Stanley. Also on Wednesday, the Fed releases its Beige Book of economic conditions based on anecdotal reports from its 12 districts. … On Thursday, the crisis commission hears from Attorney General Eric Holder, FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair, SEC chairwoman Mary Schapiro and Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general, criminal division. … Consumer Price Index is out Friday; it should offer a hint on whether the Fed will face more pressure to start tightening. Price rise of 0.2 percent expected, which is pretty tame. … Quarterly earnings flowing in all week. They will be WAY up but only compared to TERRIBLE prior year comparisons.

 ROMER SAYS OBAMA UNHAPPY WITH JOBS NUMBER, POLITICO’s Mike Allen reports: “Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said Sunday that President Barack Obama was ‘subdued’ and ‘disappointed’ upon learning of Friday’s jobless number and said the administration favors further government action. ‘The sense that we need to do more is overwhelming,’ Romer told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s ‘This Week.’ ‘We know there are things that have been working in the Recovery Act that are expiring, like some of the provisions for longer unemployment benefits. Some of the state fiscal relief — I think that’s going to be critically important to making sure we keep making progress.’ … Asked about earlier administration estimates that job growth would begin by spring, Romer replied: ‘I think that’s still a very realistic estimate.’” Romer on CNN’s “State of the Union” called Wall Street bonuses “ridiculous” and “offensive.” READ THE WHOLE POST: Exclusive: Obama budget likely to include (as yet undetermined) fee on banks to help taxpayers recoup cost of bailout -- Romer still sees recovery beginning in spring

 comments (0) | post comment | permalink

 Exclusive: Obama budget likely to include (as yet undetermined) fee on banks to help taxpayers recoup cost of bailout -- Romer still sees recovery beginning in spring BANKS BRACING FOR A BACKLASH, FT’s Justin Baer, Francesco Guerrera and Daniel Dombey on pg. 1: “Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other big banks are bracing for a renewed public and political backlash against their compensation plans as they prepare to unveil multibillion dollar bonus packages. Under pressure from government, banks are already saying they will devote the smallest percentage of annual revenues in years to their employees. But the raw numbers will still be big enough to provoke public anger, while also prompting internal dissent from traders and bankers who will see a larger share of their bonuses deferred. … Indeed, a political response by Washington to the U.K. government’s supertax on bonuses looms. The pay plans Wall Street will soon unveil are unlikely to dissuade the Obama administration from its own effort to curb compensation. … People close to Morgan Stanley said it would unveil its lowest compensation ratio in at least three years.”

 BANKERS ARE NOT HAPPY; FACE “LIQUIDITY ISSUE”: WSJ’s Susanne Craig, David Enrich and Robin Sidel on pg. 1: “[Bankers are] complaining too much of the payout is coming in stock instead of cash. Banks and securities firms have told workers their bonuses will contain a bigger percentage of stock to demonstrate that Wall Street is sensitive to public anger over the big paychecks. … Some employees say the shift could leave them short of cash, since stock comes with restrictions on how quickly it can be sold. And since many people plan their household budgets around bonus expectations, they may need the cash to cover mortgages, school tuition and other expenses. "I don't think it's just whining," said one person at a Wall Street firm. "There are legitimate liquidity issues that people have."

 FROM SUNDAY NYT FRONT ON BONUSES by Louise Story and Eric “Pittsburgh Flash” Dash: “Some bankers worry that the United States, like Britain, might create an extra tax on bank bonuses, and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, is proposing legislation to do so. … Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its employees an average of about $595,000 apiece for 2009, one of the most profitable years in its 141-year history. Workers in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase stand to collect about $463,000 on average. … At Citigroup … some managers were disappointed in recent weeks by the preliminary estimates of their bonus pools. … Citigroup’s overall 2009 bonus pool is expected to be about $5.3 billion, about the same as it was for 2008, although the bank has far fewer employees.” GOLDMAN MAY REQUIRE MORE FROM EXECS, reports NYT’s Louise Story on today’s B1: “Goldman Sachs is considering expanding a program that would require executives and top managers to give a certain percentage of their earnings to charity. The move would be the latest in a series of initiatives by Goldman to soften criticism over the size of its bonuses, which are expected to be among the largest on Wall Street, bringing average pay to about $595,000 for each employee — with far higher amounts for top performers. … While the details of the latest charity initiative are still under discussion, the firm’s executives have been looking at expanding their current charitable requirements for months and trying to understand whether such gestures would damp public anger over pay.”

 FEDS WIELD MORE POWER OVER BANK HIRES, report FT’s Brooke Masters and Francesco Guerrara: “U.S. banking supervisors are taking a much more active hand in shaping banks’ top personnel decisions, as regulators seek to prevent a recurrence of management failures that helped precipitate the financial crisis. … [S]upervisors at the [Fed and FDIC] are asking more questions about potential appointees than they did two years ago. … Federal involvement is strongest at the very largest banks that were among the last to repay billions of dollars in government loans, such as Citigroup and Bank of America.

 FRANK RICH PREVIEWS THE CRISIS PANEL, in Sunday’s NYT: “Phil Angelides, the former California treasurer who is the inquiry’s chairman, told me in interviews late last year that he has been busy deploying a tough investigative staff and will not allow the proceedings to devolve into a typical blue-ribbon Beltway exercise in toothless bloviation. …He understands that if he fails to make news or to tell the story in a way that is comprehensible and compelling enough to arouse Americans to demand action, Wall Street and Washington will both keep moving on, unchallenged and unchastened.” MORE DUMPING ON BERNANKE’S ATLANTA SPEECH: American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner: “Bernanke's high-profile speech to the American Economic Association in Atlanta, January 3, was his latest effort to redeem himself. But it provides ample evidence for why the Senate should deny him a second term. … It was easy money combined with the complete abdication of the Federal Reserve's role as a regulator that allowed Wall Street to go nuts, creating a financial house of cards. … Bernanke's speech passed up the opportunity to confess any error or personal learning curve.” EARNINGS WILL BE BETTER, BUT IT’S ALL RELATIVE, WSJ’s Paul Glader: “While fourth-quarter earnings doubtless will be far above what they were a year earlier, that largely reflects the deep hole companies were in at the end of 2008, as well as heavy cost-cutting since. Indeed, one picture likely to emerge in the next few weeks is that companies remain too cautious and sales too weak to spur much new business investment or hiring. … Reports from producers of commodities like oil, lumber and metals also will give a read on underlying demand. Alcoa Inc. will post results after the market closes on Monday, and analysts believe it will show a return to profit.”

 HOW GOOD WILL THEY BE? Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s David Bogoslaw: “The weekly outlook published by Thomson Reuters on Jan. 8 estimated a 184% increase in profits for the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. The highest year-over-year growth rates are expected in financials (up to $2.4 billion, from -$81 billion a year ago), materials (up 163% to $3.0 billion) and consumer discretionary (up 114% to $15.5 billion), while the lowest anticipated growth is in energy (down 24% to $18.5 billion) and industrials (down 13% to $154.8 billion). MORE TRANSACTION/BONUS TAX TALK, from NYPOST’s Josh Kosman and Mark DeCambre: “According to two people familiar with the matter, the White House has circulated a draft budget, and in it is a line under the revenue category that reads, ‘Wall Street and taxes.’ The vague reference to Wall Street offers no details about what kind of tax or an amount the administration hopes to collect, according to two sources, one a high-ranking executive at a bulge-bracket firm and the other a person close to the Treasury Department … [O]ne source said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is disinclined to impose that kind of tax because it could be disruptive to the markets. ‘Treasury would never agree to a transaction tax,’ this person said.

 What is more likely on the table, the sources said, is a tax on bonuses, though such a move could be disruptive to New York.”

 A UNIT GROWS AT CITI, WITH GOV'T. HELP, reports WSJ’s David Enrich on pg. 1: “Citigroup's Global Transaction Services unit, or GTS, zaps more than $3 trillion around the world each day for hundreds of corporations and dozens of governments and agencies, including the Federal Reserve. … Executives told officials with the Treasury Department and the Fed that GTS's technology and presence in more than 100 countries made it too dangerous for the U.S. to let Citigroup collapse. The Treasury gave the bank a second big helping of $20 billion just six weeks after an initial $25 billion infusion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, partly in recognition of GTS's importance to the financial system, according to government and company officials.”

 IS CHINA THE NEXT REAL ESTATE BUBBLE? WaPo’s Steve Mufson in Beijing on pg. A1: “With property prices soaring in key cities, many investors and bankers worry that China has the next great real estate bubble waiting to be popped. ... On Sunday, the nation's cabinet, citing ‘excessively rising house prices’ in some cities, said it will monitor capital flows to ‘stop overseas speculative funds from jeopardizing China's property market.’ … For investors, many of the usual bubble warning signs are flashing. Fueled by low interest rates, prices in Shanghai and Beijing doubled in less than four years, then doubled again. Most Chinese home buyers expect that today's high prices will climb even higher tomorrow, so they are stretching to pay prices at the edge of their means or beyond.”

  ||||| Associated Press

 WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is aiming to hit banks with a fee to recoup losses associated with the government's bailout of financial firms and the auto industry, administration officials say.

 The White House hopes the fee will soothe the public's anger at financial firms. Most big banks that received public funds have repaid the government, but the industry is seen by many as having survived thanks to taxpayer support, and is now enjoying a profit rebound as the economy struggles. This month, many large banks will resume paying big bonuses to employees.

 New Fees Could Take a Swipe at Bank Profits 1:45 The Obama administration is likely to slap banks with a fee designed to recoup losses associated with TARP, in a move that could help lower the deficit and reduce risk-taking by big banks. WSJ's Deborah Solomon reports.

 PM Report: Bonus Backlash 8:58 WSJ's Jerry Seib joins The News Hub to preview his piece looking at whether populist outrage at Washington could be turned toward Wall Street instead. Plus, Simon Cowell says he's leaving "American Idol" and former slugger Mark McGwire admits he used steroids when he broke baseball's home run record in 1998.

 Much remains uncertain about how such a fee would work. The administration is wrestling with who should pay, when it should be implemented and what would happen if banks pay more than the government-bailout program ultimately loses. Auto makers aren't currently targets of the fee idea.

 Even though the proposal is still under discussion, it is expected to be included in the White House's budget, due next month, if only conceptually. It's expected to cost large banks billions of dollars and could also affect bank customers if firms pass along the cost.

 One option under consideration involves placing a fee on a bank's liabilities, a number that theoretically represents the amount of risk a bank takes on, according to officials familiar with the matter. That approach would also have the effect of tamping down banks' risky behavior, another administration goal. Another option would be to target bank profits, these people said.

 It's unclear precisely who would be subject to the fee. A person familiar with the matter said it's unlikely for now to target auto companies or American International Group Inc., all of which are still struggling. Homeowners who benefited from government-funded housing help also wouldn't pay the fee.

 A person familiar with the matter said it would make little sense to impose a fee on auto makers or AIG right now: The government owns such a large chunk of them, it would essentially result in the government paying itself.

 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images Barney Frank, House Financial Services Committee Chairman, favors levy to recoup TARP costs.

 Some within the administration believe targeting banks is justified because they benefited the most from the overall financial rescue and should bear the brunt of helping the government recoup the cost.

 The proposal comes as the White House and many banks are locked in a feud about whether financial companies are doing enough to revitalize the economy.

 The fee would likely be designed to avoid hitting certain segments of the financial industry, such as community banks, many of which are still struggling. The administration is trying to structure the fee so that it can't be passed along to bank customers already struggling in the weak economy, but officials concede that's hard to do. In other areas, such as overdraft fees and credit cards, banks already are passing costs of new legislation on to their customers.

 "In our industry, costs are typically passed along to institutions and individual investors, so the burden will likely fall on them," said Timothy Ryan, president of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Major banks declined to comment.

 The administration has been talking for months about recouping government funds likely lost through the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, as it is required to do under the legislation that created the program. The Treasury Department estimates losses from the program at $120 billion, though administration officials believe the ultimate cost will be much lower.

 The fee, which would require congressional approval, could hit big banks that have already repaid their TARP funds with interest. The money would be used to compensate for losses in other areas, such as loans to Detroit's auto makers and funds used to prop up the housing sector and giant insurer AIG.

 Bankers view the proposal as the latest assault on an industry still recovering from the financial meltdown. Although revenue at some big banks has returned to pre-crisis levels, the industry more broadly remains troubled, with many more banks expected to fail.

 "To impose yet another burden on the industry would obviously decrease their ability to lend," said Edward Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association, a trade group. Bankers say they've already contributed through sums they paid to escape TARP and fees levied by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to build up its deposit-insurance fund.

 House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) said legislation that created TARP mandated that the government recoup its costs by 2013. Since the program is winding down faster than expected, a levy now would be appropriate.

 "Given the mood of the country," he said, "it is essential that we do it. That was part of the deal." He declined to get into specifics about such a levy.

 He said it would be unfair to make banks subsidize money given to auto companies, which could eventually account for the lion's share of lost bailout funds. It would be "premature" to force repayment from General Motors Co. and Chrysler LLC, he said, but some repayment mechanism for the auto companies should be considered.

 White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday declined to say whether the budget will include a new fee on banks. He did say President Barack Obama wants to make sure taxpayers are repaid for the financial-sector bailout.

 —Jonathan Weisman and Henry J. Pulizzi contributed to this article.

 Write to Deborah Solomon at deborah.solomon@wsj.com and Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com

 Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8 |||||


Article:
It’s an instance of war that we’re not really meant to see, an unnerving blur of debris and fire before death. Nearly four years after a U.S. Army combat photographer was killed during a training exercise with Afghan forces, the military has released what is her final image taken in the moments before she died.

 Spc. Hilda I. Clayton, a “visual information specialist” and a member of the 55th Signal Company, or Combat Camera, was photographing an Afghan National Army “mortar validation exercise” in the eastern Laghman Province on July 2, 2013, when a mortar tube accidentally exploded. Clayton, 22, of Augusta, Ga., was killed alongside an Afghan photographer she was training and several ANA soldiers. Her image was published with the Afghan photographer’s picture in the May-June issue of Military Review, a journal of the army.

 An undated handout photograph of Spc. Hilda I. Clayton. U.S. Army/EPA

 “At the critical juncture of the war, when it was necessary for the ANA to increasingly assume responsibility for military actions, the story was not in the fighting but in the partnership that was necessary between U.S. and Afghan forces to stabilize the Afghan nation. One of the Afghan soldiers killed was a photojournalist that Clayton had partnered with to train in photojournalism,” the journal article states. “Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort.”

 The article adds that Clayton’s death “symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts.”

 Bill Darley, managing editor of Military Review, said in a phone call on Tuesday that the photos had been brought to the publication’s attention by a staff member who had served with Clayton. He said it felt a proper homage to Clayton and a fitting end for an edition that in part focused on gender equality.

 Of the response to Clayton’s photo, which has been shared widely, Darley said she “was revered by her unit—they even named an annual contest in her honor—and she was a dedicated soldier, so we are gratified” that the public is interested in her story.

 Contact sheet of pictures from LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer's last roll of film, 1967. Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

 As difficult it is to imagine that a photographer continued to shoot in their final moments, there is precedent. In the first hours of the Six-Day War in 1967, LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer was embedded in an armed convoy heading across the Negev Desert to Gaza when he was shot in the head. Schutzer’s camera was found near his remains; on the roll of 35-mm film was about two-dozen frames. In a special edition, LIFE honored his career and printed his final pictures.

 Similarly, in the days after her death, Clayton’s spirit in the field was recalled. “She was always willing to take on any mission,” said Col. Bill Benson, the Augusta Chronicle reported, “and she pursued every opportunity to tell our story with her images. This week, in the hours after the image was released, a few new visitors signed an online guest book honoring her legacy. “I never knew you, but I just read about you in the news,” wrote Robert B. from Chico, Calif. “I am proud of you.” ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| Spc. Hilda I. Clayton

 May 21, 1991 to July 2, 2013

 Download the PDF

 ×

 Spc. Hilda I. Clayton, a visual information specialist assigned to the 55th Signal Company (Combat Camera), was killed while photographing a live-fire training exercise 2 July 2013 in Laghman Province, Afghanistan. Clayton and four Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers died when a mortar tube accidentally exploded during an ANA mortar validation exercise being supported by U.S. Army trainers. She was attached to the 4th Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in eastern Afghanistan.

 ×

 At the critical juncture of the war, when it was necessary for the ANA to increasingly assume responsibility for military actions, the story was not in the fighting but in the partnership that was necessary between U.S. and Afghan forces to stabilize the Afghan nation. One of the Afghan soldiers killed was a photojournalist that Clayton had partnered with to train in photojournalism. Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort.

 Combat Camera soldiers are trained to take still and video imagery in any environment. Their primary mission is to accompany combat soldiers wherever deployed to document the history of combat operations. Clayton’s death symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts.

 Clayton’s service and sacrifice were recognized during memorial ceremonies at Forward Operating Base Gamberi on 8 July 2013 and at the Defense Information School (DINFOS), Fort Meade, Maryland, on 13 December 2013. At Fort Meade, Clayton’s name was added to the DINFOS Hall of Heroes.

 Combat Camera further honored Clayton by naming the award for the winner of its annual best combat camera competition after her. The Spc. Hilda I. Clayton Best Combat Camera (COMCAM) Competition consists of five days of events to test joint service combat camera personnel on their physical and technical skills. |||||Summary:

– It's a jarring image, and that's before learning that the Army photographer who captured it was killed moments later. The photo shows the first instant of a mortar tube explosion during a training exercise in Afghanistan in 2013, a blast that killed 22-year-old Army Spc. Hilda Clayton, reports Time. The explosion also killed the Afghan photographer she'd been training, along with three Afghan soldiers, reports the Army Times. The Army has published final images from both photographers in its journal Military Review. (The feature on Clayton is on the second last page, while an Army press release has the images here.) A staffer who served with Clayton brought the images to the journal's attention, and they were published with the consent of her family in Augusta, Ga., reports Stars and Stripes. "Not only did Clayton help document activities aimed at shaping and strengthening the (Afghan) partnership but she also shared in the risk by participating in the effort," says the story, adding that Clayton’s death "symbolizes how female soldiers are increasingly exposed to hazardous situations in training and in combat on par with their male counterparts." Clayton was the first "combat documentation and production specialist" killed in Afghanistan, the Army says. Her unit, known as Combat Camera, has created an annual contest in her honor.


LONDON, Nov 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The first map showing the world's hidden groundwater was published on Monday, bringing us closer to estimating how much there is, and when it will run out if we over-use the resource.

 Using data and computer models, an international team of researchers estimated that less than six percent and perhaps as little as one percent of water found close to the Earth's surface is renewable in a human lifetime.

 "This has never been known before," Tom Gleeson of Canada's University of Victoria and the lead author of the study, said in a statement.

 "We already know that water levels in lots of aquifers are dropping. We're using our groundwater resources too fast - faster than they're being renewed."

 The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, estimated a total volume of underground water to be almost 23 million cubic kilometres, of which 0.35 million cubic kilometres is younger than 50 years old.

 Underground water is found beneath the Earth's surface and is recharged by rain, snow or water that leaks from the bottom of lakes and rivers.

 Its age can be a few months to millions of years. It can be found as deep as 30,000 feet (around 9 km), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

 "Since we now know how much groundwater is being depleted and how much there is, we will be able to estimate how long until we run out," Gleeson said.

 Although water found closer to the surface is being renewed quicker than the water found deeper in the Earth, it is more sensitive to contamination and climate change, but it can also serve to temper climate extremes, Gleeson said.

 Water found deeper in the Earth is often used for agriculture and industry. It can contain arsenic or uranium and is often more salty than seawater, he added.

 "Groundwater can and should be thought of as a very useful buffer to climate extremes," Gleeson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Canada.

 "If properly managed it flows to rivers during times of drought so it's a valuable and strategic resource for mitigating the extreme impacts of climate on water availability."

 According to the study, most groundwater is found in tropical and mountainous regions, with some of the largest deposits in the Amazon Basin, the Congo, Indonesia and along the western borders of North and South America.

 Not surprisingly, the least amount is in arid regions such as the Sahara. (Reporting by Magdalena Mis; Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org) ||||| Groundwater: it's one of the planet's most exploited, most precious natural resources. It ranges in age from months to millions of years old. Around the world, there's increasing demand to know how much we have and how long before it's tapped out.

 For the first time since a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the global volume of groundwater was attempted in the 1970s, an international group of hydrologists has produced the first data-driven estimate of the Earth's total supply of groundwater. The study, led by Dr. Tom Gleeson of the University of Victoria with co-authors at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Calgary and the University of Göttingen, was published today in Nature Geoscience.

 The bigger part of the study is the "modern" groundwater story. The report shows that less than six per cent of groundwater in the upper two kilometres of the Earth's landmass is renewable within a human lifetime.

 "This has never been known before," says Gleeson. "We already know that water levels in lots of aquifers are dropping. We're using our groundwater resources too fast--faster than they're being renewed."

 With the growing global demand for water--especially in light of climate change--this study provides important information to water managers and policy developers as well as scientists from fields such as hydrology, atmospheric science, geochemistry and oceanography to better manage groundwater resources in a sustainable way, he says.

 Using multiple datasets (including data from close to a million watersheds), and more than 40,000 groundwater models, the study estimates a total volume of nearly 23 million cubic kilometres of total groundwater of which 0.35 million cubic kilometres is younger than 50 years old.

 Why is it important to differentiate old from modern groundwater? Young and old groundwater are fundamentally different in how they interact with the rest of the water and climate cycles. Old groundwater is found deeper and is often used as a water resource for agriculture and industry. Sometimes it contains arsenic or uranium and is often more salty than ocean water. In some areas, the briny water is so old, isolated and stagnant it should be thought of as non-renewable, says Gleeson.

 The volume of modern groundwater dwarfs all other components of the active water cycle and is a more renewable resource but, because it's closer to surface water and is faster-moving than old groundwater, it's also more vulnerable to climate change and contamination by human activities.

 The study's maps show most modern groundwater in tropical and mountain regions. Some of the largest deposits are in the Amazon Basin, the Congo, Indonesia, and in North and Central America running along the Rockies and the western cordillera to the tip of South America. High northern latitudes are excluded from the data because satellite data doesn't accurately cover these latitudes. Regardless, this area is largely under permafrost with little groundwater. The least amount of modern groundwater is not surprisingly in more arid regions such as the Sahara.

 "Intuitively, we expect drier areas to have less young groundwater and more humid areas to have more, but before this study, all we had was intuition. Now, we have a quantitative estimate that we compared to geochemical observations." says Dr. Kevin Befus, who conducted the groundwater simulations as part of his doctoral research at the University of Texas and is now a post-doctoral fellow at the United States Geological Survey.

 The next step in painting a full picture of how quickly we're depleting both old and modern groundwater is to analyze volumes of groundwater in relation to how much is being used and depleted.

 In a previous study that ultimately led to the investigation of modern groundwater, Gleeson's 2012 groundwater footprint report in Nature mapped global hot spots of groundwater stress, charting rates of precipitation compared to the rates of use through pumping, mostly for agriculture. Some of these hot spots are northern India and Pakistan, northern China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and parts of the US and Mexico.

 "Since we now know how much groundwater is being depleted and how much there is, we will be able to estimate how long until we run out," says Gleeson. To do this, he will be leading a further study using a global scale model.

 ###

 Funding for this study came from Natural Sciences and Research Council, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, US National Science Foundation and the American Geophysical Union.

 The global volume and distribution of modern groundwater: http://nature. com/ articles/ doi:10. 1038/ ngeo2590

 Note: This url will automatically redirect to the paper once it's published online (Nov. 16, 8 a.m. PST).

 Modern groundwater map and photo of Dr. Tom Gleeson available for download at this DropBox link: http://ow. ly/ UuLdh

 Media contacts: Tom Gleeson (Engineering) at 250-853-3934 or tgleeson@uvic.ca

 Suzanne Ahearne (University Communications + Marketing) at 250-721-6139 or sahearne@uvic.ca

 Follow us on Twitter: @uvicnews |||||

Write a summary.

– "We're using our groundwater resources too fast—faster than they're being renewed," Dr. Tom Gleeson says in a University of Victoria press release. Gleeson, along with fellow researchers, published the most accurate map of Earth's groundwater supply to date on Monday in Nature Geoscience. The study found there is about 14.3 million cubic miles of groundwater left on Earth. But that's not as encouraging as it sounds, according to Reuters, because no more than 6% of it is renewable within a human lifetime. "That's never been known before," says Gleeson, who adds that people are going to need to manage that resource better as water demands grow amid ongoing drought. "Groundwater can and should be thought of as a very useful buffer to climate extremes," he says. "It's a valuable and strategic resource for mitigating the extreme impacts of climate." The amount of groundwater less than 50 years old is enough to cover every continent with approximately 10 feet of water, according to the study. But while that young groundwater is more quickly replenished, it's also more easily polluted by people and impacted by climate change, Reuters reports. The rest of Earth's groundwater—which can be millions of years old—is much deeper underground and can be extremely salty and contain harmful elements, according to the press release. The next step is to figure out how dire the situation is. "Since we now know how much groundwater is being depleted and how much there is, we will be able to estimate how long until we run out," Gleeson says. (But at least we might have more helium left that we thought.)


Here is a news article: Tim Tebow cancels appearance at church of controversial pastor

 Lisa W. Buser/USA TODAY Sports

 Tim Tebow has canceled a scheduled appearance at the Dallas megachurch of Robert Jeffress, the controversial pastor whose views on other religions and homosexuality have drawn outrage in recent years.

 The New York Jets backup, who likely will be traded or released soon, was scheduled to deliver two sermons on April 28 at the new, $130 million building at First Baptist Dallas Church. The church boasts more than 11,000 congregants.

 On Thursday, he tweeted that he would no longer honor the commitment. He didn't specifically say why he was canceling but alluded to the controversy surrounding his appearance:

 While I was looking forward to sharing a message of hope and Christ's unconditional love with the faithful members of the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas in April, due to new information that has been brought to my attention, I have decided to cancel my upcoming appearance. I will continue to use the platform God has blessed me with to bring Faith, Hope and Love to all those needing a brighter day. Thank you for all of your love and support. God Bless!

 First Baptist Church responded to Tebow's cancellation in a statement.

 "Mr. Tebow called Dr. Jeffress Wednesday evening saying that for personal and professional reasons he needed to avoid controversy at this time, but would like to come to First Baptist Dallas to speak at a future date," the statement read.

 Jeffress has made news for his critiques of other religions and lifestyles. The pastor said Muslims practice a religion that came from the depths of hell and "promote pedophilia." In his eyes, Mormonism is a cult that should have disqualified Mitt Romney from the 2012 election.

 The pastor's also very much against homosexuality. "[It] is perverse, it represents a degradation of a person's mind," Jeffress has said.

 "As a Christian pastor, Dr. Jeffress takes a biblical approach to moral and social issues, closely following his duty to preach 'the whole counsel of God,' and not just address issues that are politically correct," First Baptist's statement said.

 Tebow's planned visit had drawn intense criticism. Rick Chandler of Off the Bench suggests Tebow's appearance is a tacit endorsement of Jeffress' beliefs. Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel said Tebow risked losing his credibility if he appeared at the church.

 To his credit, Tebow seems to have responded to the uproar with a principled stand against Jeffress and he did so without creating more controversy. Some might say his polite cancellation didn't go far enough. He could have bailed on the pastor and issued a strong statement against his beliefs. But that's not Tebow's way. This simple gesture is an effective rebuke of intolerance.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/VysGPg ||||| First Baptist Church Tim Tebow Was 'Pressured' to Cancel Speech

 EXCLUSIVE

 was unjustly pressured by the media to back out of his speaking appearance at the controversialin Dallas ... at least according to the church.A rep for the church tells TMZ, "We are saddened that Mr. Tebow felt pressure to back out of his long-planned commitment from numerous New York and national sports and news media who grossly misrepresented past comments made by our pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress, specifically related to issues of homosexuality and AIDS, as well as Judaism."Rev. Jeffress has been quoted as saying, "70 percent of the gay population" has AIDS -- and has described Judaism, Islam and Mormonism as religions from the "pit of hell."According to the church, Tebow called Dr. Jeffress Wednesday evening to say that for "personal and professional reasons he needed to avoid controversy" ... and would be canceling the appearance which was scheduled for April 28.The church says Tebow told Rev. Jeffress he'd still like to come speak at First Baptist Dallas sometime in the future -- and adds, "Dr. Jeffress shares a message of hope, not hate." |||||
A summary of this is?

– Up until last night, Tim Tebow was scheduled to appear at Pastor Robert Jeffress' Dallas megachurch in April, but he announced today that he canceled the appearance after "new information" was brought to his attention. Jeffress is a controversial figure who has called Mormonism a "cult," gays "perverse," and Islam a religion that "promote[s] pedophilia," USA Today reports. Tebow's statement doesn't mention anything about rescheduling, but a rep for First Baptist Church says that when the football star called to cancel last night, he said he wanted to "speak at a future date." Tebow had been criticized for the planned visit, at which he was to deliver two sermons. A rep for the church tells TMZ that Tebow backed out because of "pressure ... from numerous New York and national sports and news media who grossly misrepresented past comments made by our pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress, specifically related to issues of homosexuality and AIDS, as well as Judaism." The rep adds that Tebow told Jeffress he "needed to avoid controversy."


Article:

A portrait of Henry Rayhons, an Iowa state legislator, and his late second wife Donna Young hangs in the living room... Read More

 A portrait of Henry Rayhons, an Iowa state legislator, and his late second wife Donna Young hangs in the living room of Rayhons condo in Garner, Iowa, on Nov. 25, 2014. Close

 Henry Rayhons, a former Iowa state legislator, climbs into a combine driven by his son, Gary, as they test the... Read More

 Henry Rayhons, a former Iowa state legislator, climbs into a combine driven by his son, Gary, as they test the moisture level of a soybean field near their farm in Hayfield, Iowa, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014. Close

 A vehicle drives through Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 8, 2014. Henry Rayhons and Donna Young met while singing in the choir... Read More

 A vehicle drives through Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 8, 2014. Henry Rayhons and Donna Young met while singing in the choir at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Garner. Close

 Henry Rayhons, a former Iowa state legislator, pauses as he gets emotional during an interview in Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 8, 2014.

 Henry Rayhons, a former Iowa state legislator, pauses as he gets emotional during an interview in Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 8, 2014. Close

 Staffers at Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, told Henry Rayhons he was no longer allowed in his wife's room, 12N,... Read More

 Staffers at Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, told Henry Rayhons he was no longer allowed in his wife's room, 12N, because he made her roommate uncomfortable. Close

 The grave marker of Donna Young, the second wife of Henry Rayhons, stands in a cemetery in Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 7,... Read More

 The grave marker of Donna Young, the second wife of Henry Rayhons, stands in a cemetery in Garner, Iowa, on Oct. 7, 2014. Donna died on Aug. 8, four days short of her 79th birthday. Close

 Iowa State Representative Henry Rayhons is awaiting trial on a felony charge that he raped his wife at a nursing home... Read More

 Iowa State Representative Henry Rayhons is awaiting trial on a felony charge that he raped his wife at a nursing home where she was living. Close

 More than 350 people attended the wedding reception of Donna Lou Young and Henry V. Rayhons in Duncan, Iowa, on Dec. 15, 2007. Family and friends ate pork roast and danced polkas to celebrate the union of a widow and a widower, both in their 70s, who had found unexpected love after the deaths of their long-time spouses.

 For the next six-and-a-half years, Henry and Donna Rayhons were inseparable. She sat near him in the state House chamber while he worked as a Republican legislator. He helped with her beekeeping. She rode alongside him in a combine as he harvested corn and soybeans on his 700 acres in northern Iowa. They sang in the choir at Sunday Mass.

 “We just loved being together,” Henry Rayhons says.

 Today, he’s awaiting trial on a felony charge that he raped Donna at a nursing home where she was living. The Iowa Attorney General’s office says Rayhons had intercourse with his wife when she lacked the mental capacity to consent because she had Alzheimer’s. She died on Aug. 8, four days short of her 79th birthday, of complications from the disease. One week later, Rayhons, 78, was arrested. He pleaded not guilty.

 To convict Rayhons, prosecutors must first convince a jury that a sex act occurred in his wife’s room at the Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, on May 23. If prosecutors prove that, his guilt or innocence will turn on whether Donna wanted sex or not, and whether her dementia prevented her from making that judgment and communicating her wishes.

 The State of Iowa vs. Henry Rayhons offers a rare look into a complex and thinly explored dilemma that will arise with increasing frequency as the 65-and-over population expands and the number of people with dementia grows. It suggests how ill-equipped nursing homes and law enforcement agencies are to deal with the nuances of dementia, especially when sex is involved. The combination of sex and dementia also puts enormous strains on family relationships, which turned out to be a critical element in the Rayhons case. His four children are supporting him. Two of Donna’s three daughters played a role in Rayhons’ investigation. Through their attorney, Philip Garland, the two declined to be interviewed for this story.

 Sexual assault laws years ago recognized that a spouse cannot force himself or herself upon the other. Dementia confuses the issue. People with dementia can lose past inhibitions about sex and become aggressive about seeking it. They might be unable to balance a checkbook while they’re perfectly capable of deciding whether they desire a partner’s affections.

 Experts in geriatrics say that intimacy -- from a hug to a massage to intercourse -- can make dementia sufferers feel less lonely and even prolong their lives. Love complicates things further.

 By many accounts, Henry and Donna Rayhons were deeply in love. Both their families embraced their marriage. The case has produced no evidence thus far that the couple’s love faded, that Donna failed to recognize her husband or that she asked that he not touch her, said Rayhons’ son Dale Rayhons, a paramedic and the family’s unofficial spokesman.

 Based on evidence generated so far, state prosecutors are likely to portray Rayhons as a sex-hungry man who took advantage of a sweet, confused woman who didn’t know what month it was, forgot how to eat a hamburger and lost track of her room.

 “Any partner in a marriage has the right to say no,” said Katherine C. Pearson, who teaches and writes about elder law at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law and reviewed the Rayhons case at the request of Bloomberg News. “What we haven’t completely understood is, as in this case, at what point in dementia do you lose the right to say yes?”

 In interviews, Rayhons said his life and reputation are already ruined. Shortly before his arrest, he withdrew from the election that probably would have won him his 10th consecutive two-year term representing a northern Iowa district in the state House of Representatives.

 Sitting in his son’s heated garage on a chilly October night, he convulses with sobs recalling the events of recent months. He says he’s most distraught about being kept from Donna during the last weeks of her life.

 “My wife just died and you’re charged with something like this because you prayed by her bed,” he says. “It hurts. It really hurts.”

 This story was assembled from hundreds of pages of documents filed with Iowa regulators and the Hancock County District Court in Garner as well as interviews with more than two dozen people. Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Iowa attorney general Tom Miller, declined to comment or make prosecutors available for interviews.

 Henry and Donna

 Henry Rayhons is a sturdy, 6-foot-2-inch man whose family has farmed in northern Iowa for more than a century. He graduated in 1954 from the high school in Garner, a town of clapboard homes and 3,100 people about 110 miles north of Des Moines. Rayhons took night classes in farming and never attended college.

 He married Marvalyn Carolus in 1959. They had two daughters and two sons who helped them grow crops and raise dairy cows northwest of Garner. Diabetes forced Marvalyn to undergo two kidney transplants and cost her parts of her feet and her vision. At home, Rayhons dressed her wounds and hung IV bottles, his children said.

 As Marvalyn’s condition deteriorated in 2006, Rayhons said, “She told me, ‘Don’t stay alone. Find someone to share your life with you.’” After she died that November, he grew despondent. His son Dale, 52, recalls his father saying, “I keep praying for God to just take me. I’m nothing.”

 The next summer, Rayhons got to know Donna Lou Young, an elegant woman with an infectious smile and a shock of white-on-silver hair set over her forehead like a tiara. She grew up in Garner, where her parents owned a bakery, and later worked as a secretary at the high school there.

 After her husband of 48 years died in 2001, Donna survived on savings, Social Security checks and what she made selling honey from bees her late husband had kept. She loved babies, cookbooks and her garden. Friends and family gobbled up her potato bread, pickles and onion rings.

 She and Rayhons began to flirt while singing in the choir at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Garner. “She was always a very well-dressed lady, which I admired,” Rayhons said. “She liked high-heeled shoes.” In August 2007, he asked her to accompany him to the Iowa State Fair. Donna said she’d go if he first went with her to her daughter’s 25th anniversary party.

 Not long after, Rayhons told his son Gary Rayhons, 43, that he and Donna were going to wed. “He’s not a very emotional man,” Gary said. “It’s probably only the second time in my life he gave me a hug, he was so happy.”

 Henry Huber, then pastor of St. Boniface, dubbed Donna “Smoochie” because she and Rayhons often kissed at the “sign of peace” during Mass.

 “They were two good people who were good together,” Huber said.

 Children of both Donna and Rayhons helped with the wedding arrangements. St. Boniface was dressed in scarlet poinsettias. The bride wore a white veil. At the reception, Malek’s Fishermen played polkas within the wood-paneled walls of the Duncan Community Ballroom.

 Rayhons said he and Donna “danced with our grandchildren until 11 o’clock and we were so tired, we just went home and never thought of what newlyweds are supposed to do.”

 They lived in Rayhons’ house in Hayfield before moving to a condo in Garner. Donna became a fixture at the state Capitol in Des Moines, where the part-time legislature meets for about four months each year.

 “Her clothes were always immaculate. She was always in a skirt,” said Charity McCauley Andeweg, who clerked for Rayhons. He bought Donna more than a dozen dresses on sale at the Goodnature department store in Garner. “She was so proud that he would go shopping with her,” McCauley Andeweg said. “He treated her like a queen.”

 In the summer, they went arm-in-arm to July 4th parades and polka festivals, pork feeds and fish fries. Rayhons got himself a bee suit. “I learned about beekeeping in a real hurry,” he said. He and Donna attended Mass once or twice a week and enjoyed leisurely drives in the flatlands surrounding Garner.

 “It was usually hard to find them at home,” said Rayhons’ daughter Carol Juhl, 54.

 Diagnosis: Alzheimer’s

 Four years ago, Donna saw a neurologist for headaches and forgetfulness. He diagnosed her with possible early onset Alzheimer’s. Over the next few years, she began to repeat herself, family and friends say. She left belongings behind. She drove on the wrong side of the road. She put a single sock in her dryer when she meant to do a full load.

 Rayhons said he took her driver’s license, unplugged the dryer, and kept her away from the stove.

 About 5.2 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, the Alzheimer’s Association says. Partly due to the aging of the Baby Boom generation, the association expects the number of those 65 and over with Alzheimer’s to exceed 7 million by 2025, barring medical breakthroughs.

 While fatal for every victim, Alzheimer’s experiences vary. A person who lacks mental capacity to fathom a grocery list could be able to choose the television show she wants to watch. Those capabilities can vary from day to day and hour to hour.

 “When somebody has dementia, their ability to know is impaired, but it also fluctuates,” said Pearson of the Penn State law school. “It’s not an on-or-off switch. It’s more of a dimmer switch.”

 That makes it difficult to measure with precision a sufferer’s ability to make a particular judgment at a particular moment, especially when it comes to the emotionally fraught subject of sex.

 Pearson said rape cases involving a spouse with dementia are extremely rare and she couldn’t recall another one in more than 20 years of work on elderly issues.

 “This is maybe the last great frontier of questions about capacity and dementia,” she said. “And it’s all tied up with our own personal feelings about sex.”

 By early this year, two of Donna Rayhons’ daughters were concerned about their mother’s worsening dementia and the way Rayhons was caring for her. Linda Dunshee, 54, and Suzan Brunes, 52, had heard from a legislator, a lobbyist and other people working in the Capitol that he sometimes left her alone while he was in meetings. They worried she’d wander the hallways or outside on her own, according to their statements to investigators and other court documents.

 Brunes, a hospital administrator, and Dunshee, executive director of a non-profit serving people with intellectual disabilities, had talked to Rayhons about putting their mother in a nursing home. He had resisted.

 He says now he didn’t want to be separated from her. He says he wanted to get her professional care that would allow her to keep living with him. His son Dale said, “I’m sure there was probably a little bit of denial in it, that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.”

 On March 25, Dunshee picked up Donna in Des Moines and took her for lunch at a downtown restaurant, according to testimony Dunshee later gave to a state investigator. Beneath her winter coat and blazer, Donna was wearing a sleep teddy that exposed her breasts, Dunshee told the investigator. In a restaurant bathroom, Donna put her hands in the toilet bowl.

 John Boedeker, a family physician in the Garner area, examined Donna and recommended placing her in a nursing home.

 ‘Donna Was Gone’

 On March 29, Brunes and Dunshee moved their mother into Concord Care Center in Garner, two miles from the condo where Donna and Rayhons lived. Rayhons was aware that Donna might be moving, though he had resisted, according to a log kept by the daughters.

 While his wife was moving, Rayhons was attending a legislative forum 30 miles away. “I got home and Donna was gone,” he said, his face flushing red with anger. “I couldn’t talk to the girls. They were the boss.”

 Concord Care is a red-brick, one-story building that sits nine blocks from the courthouse where Rayhons is scheduled to be tried. The 66-bed facility is one of more than 50 nursing homes, assisted living centers and other long-term care facilities operated by privately held ABCM Corp. of Hampton, Iowa. Concord Care administrator Holly Brink declined to comment on the Rayhons case. She told investigators that Rayhons had trouble understanding dementia.

 On its website, ABCM says its properties embrace a policy of “person-directed care” designed to give each resident a prominent voice in how she or he lives.

 Concord Care has no designated unit for dementia sufferers, though staffers try to minimize activity that could agitate them, Brink said. The home doesn’t have a specific policy on sexual matters.

 Staff notes portray Donna in her early weeks at the home as pleasant, alert and occasionally forgetful. She initiated conversation with other residents and enjoyed bingo, music and other activities.

 Donna had a room to herself where one afternoon a nurse opened the door to find her in bed and Rayhons kneeling in prayer. Brink later told a state investigator that the two held hands and “Henry was more affectionate with Donna than most people were,” an interview summary said.

 Because the legislature was in session, Rayhons awoke many days at 5 a.m. so he could see Donna before driving two hours to Des Moines. When the House finished for the day, he drove back to have dinner with her, say a Rosary, and kiss her goodnight, he said.

 Donna’s condition worsened in May. She had trouble eating and finishing sentences, didn’t recognize mashed potatoes and wandered into other residents’ rooms, according to statements to investigators and other documents.

 There was increasing friction between Rayhons and Donna’s daughters, Brunes and Dunshee. Rayhons pushed for taking his wife out on outings, which the daughters thought agitated their mother, and made derogatory remarks to Donna about the daughters and Concord Care, according to the daughters’ log. Rayhons says now that Donna became upset because he couldn’t be with her all the time.

 Brunes and Dunshee also were increasingly concerned that their mother was having sex with Rayhons when she lacked the capacity to knowingly consent, according to interviews with investigators and other documents. The daughters’ log says a nurse told the women that on a number of occasions, Donna was wearing nothing but a robe after a visit from Rayhons, and that staffers “felt sickened by what he was doing to her.”

 Brunes told a state investigator that her mother said Rayhons wanted sex one to two times daily, and that Donna once pointed at her crotch and said, “Henry likes this a lot.” Rayhons later told the investigator that his wife enjoyed sex whenever they had it.

 On May 14, Brunes and Dunshee met with Brink and John Brady, another family physician caring for Donna at the home. They discussed a new plan to limit outside activities, including outings with Rayhons, so Donna’s routine would be more consistent and less agitating.

 Consent or Not?

 Brady initialed a one-page document listing the restrictions and including a question about whether Donna was mentally able to consent to “any sexual activity.” Brady wrote, “No.”

 The plan and the sexual decision were based on Donna faring poorly on a standardized cognitive test called the Brief Interview for Mental Status. The BIMS is used to identify nursing home residents with dementia for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes.

 Test subjects score from 0 to 15 on a series of memory questions such as what year, month and day it is. They’re given the words “sock,” “blue,” and “bed” and asked to repeat them. Donna scored 2 on a BIMS given her on April 3 and zero on a May 13 test.

 Using the BIMS to gauge a dementia sufferer’s ability to make sexual and other decisions is a mistake made by many long-term care facilities, said Susan Wehry, a geriatric psychiatrist and commissioner of the Vermont state department that investigates sexual and other abuse in nursing homes.

 “I’m sensitive to the nursing home’s desire to protect their resident and certainly to the daughters’ desire to protect their mother,” Wehry said. “The BIMS in this case tells me nothing except that she has dementia. You can have virtually no short-term memory and still consent to a lot of things.”

 Douglas Wornell, a Tacoma, Washington, geriatric psychiatrist and author of the 2013 book “Sexuality and Dementia,” said it was “naïve” to conclude that Donna’s inability to recall words meant she couldn’t decide whether she wanted sex, which is “along the order of knowing you want some food.”

 Rayhons was presented with the document saying Donna couldn’t make decisions about sex in a meeting with her daughters and Concord Care staff on May 15. He said he understood and “it wouldn’t be any problem,” Brunes told a state investigator.

 A few days later, Brunes and a Concord Care social worker discussed moving Donna into a room with a roommate she could interact with, according to the log the daughters kept. The home needed Donna’s room for a male resident and Brunes thought having a roommate might prevent “potential sexual acts,” according to a log she and Dunshee kept.

 Donna moved into Room 12 North on Friday, May 23. She wasn’t happy about it, according to the daughters’ log. She wept and accused Brunes of not liking her husband.

 That evening, Donna’s roommate, 85-year-old Polly Schoneman, was sitting in a chair when Rayhons came to visit Donna at about 7:40 p.m. He stayed for about half an hour. Shortly after he left, Schoneman hit the call button in Room 12 North’s bathroom.

 She was crying when nurse Shari Dakin and a nurse assistant came in. “I just can’t stand him,” Schoneman told them. She said Rayhons closed a privacy curtain between the beds and said, “Honey, I’m going to get you ready for bed,” the staff notes say.

 Schoneman said she then heard “sexual” noises, the notes say. “I’m not stupid, I know what was going on,” she told the staffers. A video camera in the hallway caught Rayhons dropping his wife’s panties into a hamper.

 Rape Test

 A flurry of calls between staff and Donna’s daughters followed. Around 10:30 p.m., Dunshee asked that police be called. Sometime after midnight, Garner’s police chief and Brunes took Donna to a hospital for a sexual assault test, the staff notes say. Donna’s panties and bedding were sent to the state crime lab in Ankeny.

 Brunes told nursing home staff that her mother “tolerated the hospital assessment well” and there was “no bruising or tearing of her vaginal skin,” according to a log prepared by a staffer.

 Rayhons returned the next morning and sat near an aviary with Donna, holding hands. “Donna was smiling, talking with him about the farm,” the staff notes say. He was unaware that police had taken Donna for a rape test the night before. Staffers told him he was no longer allowed in 12N because he made Donna’s roommate uncomfortable.

 “How much more are you going to cut me off from her?” he said.

 Three weeks later, Rayhons was getting his mail one morning when special agent Scott Reger of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation pulled up in an unmarked Chrysler 300. Reger identified himself. As Reger followed Rayhons into his condo, the agent turned on his audio recorder.

 By then, Rayhons knew he was under investigation for possible sexual assault. It had come up at an informal court conference about Brunes’ successful petition to become Donna’s temporary legal guardian. Rayhons initially thought he should be his wife’s guardian and backed off after learning he “had a much bigger fight coming,” son Dale said.

 Under terms of the guardianship, Rayhons agreed to more limits on interactions with Donna. He needed Brunes’ permission to take his wife on outings. Among other things, Rayhons was kept from taking Donna to a friend’s funeral, because her daughters felt it could agitate her.

 Rayhons and agent Reger, 39, sat facing each other on bar stools in Rayhons’ kitchen. On the refrigerator door hung a photograph of Donna that Rayhons says he kisses whenever he opens the fridge. He and Reger talked for almost two hours, according to an 89-page transcript of the agent’s audiotape.

 Rayhons told Reger that Donna had “gone downhill badly” after entering Concord Care, though she had days when she could have a coherent conversation. He said she had begged him to take her for a drive so she could “see the crops growing and the honeybees coming out of the hives.”

 He said, “She hates the place she’s in.”

 Reger asked about their sex life. “It was not a regular thing,” Rayhons told the agent. At his age, he said, “you forget about that stuff and you just want togetherness.” He said Donna on occasion asked for sex by saying, “Shall we play a little bit?” He said he “never touched her when she didn’t want it and I only tried to fulfill her need when she asked for it.”

 Reger pressed him about the evening of May 23. Rayhons said he couldn’t remember being in Donna’s room. After suggesting that tiny video cameras had captured Rayhons having sex with Donna, Reger asked if Rayhons had placed his penis inside his wife. Rayhons said, “I would guess … if … if that’s what you’re saying, yeah.” The state hasn’t produced evidence thus far of videos taken in the room.

 Rayhons acknowledged seeing the document asserting that Donna couldn’t consent to sex. Then he argued with Reger about whether she could. “She still asks for it,” Rayhons said, and the agent replied, “I know that she didn’t ask for it that night, okay?” After letting Reger take DNA swabs of his mouth, Rayhons said, “I don’t remember having sex in that room with her. I really do not.”

 After the agent left, Rayhons drove his black Cadillac to son Dale’s house in Forest City, 13 miles away. Dale recalls his father as upset and confused: “He said, ‘I don’t know what just happened.’”

 Hancock County attorney David Solheim oversees most criminal prosecutions in his jurisdiction. He said he let the state handle the Rayhons case because Rayhons “is a well-known political figure here” and “it would be better that we didn’t get into the weeds of the local politics.”

 ‘Love You, Honey’

 Rayhons saw his wife for the last time on Aug. 7. It was only the second time he’d been allowed to see her for several weeks. He and son Gary made the 45-minute drive to Hampton, Iowa, where Donna had been moved to an ABCM facility with an Alzheimer’s unit.

 Dunshee and Brunes were with their mother. She was incommunicative. Rayhons knelt by her bed and prayed the Rosary. Gary said his father held Donna’s hand and said, “Love you, Honey.”

 She died the next day.

 Rayhons attended Donna’s Aug. 12 funeral at St. Boniface, the church where he married her. He was arrested three days later and released on $10,000 cash bond. The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a one-page press release about the arrest. The release made no mention that the alleged rape victim was Rayhons’ wife.

 In court filings, prosecutors say Rayhons confessed to having sex with his wife. They also cite what Donna’s roommate, Schoneman, told nursing home staff on May 23.

 The state crime lab completed Donna’s rape test Nov. 20. It took six months to process because of a backlog at the lab. The exam showed no evidence of seminal fluid or DNA other than Donna’s on swabs of her mouth and vagina. A stain in her underwear “indicated the presence of seminal fluid; however, no spermatozoa were microscopically identified,” the two-page lab report said.

 Rayhons’ son Dale said that the stain must be old and the test results show that his father didn’t have sex with Donna on May 23. In a recent court filing, prosecutors said Donna’s bedding has yet to be tested and the presence of the stain “is entirely consistent with the State’s theory of the case.” Prosecutors also have argued that a lack of DNA evidence wouldn’t refute Rayhons’ alleged confession.

 Rayhons’ attorney, Joel Yunek of Mason City, said in a court filing that what Rayhons told agent Reger is “vague” unless “snippets of the interview are selectively taken out of context.” In a June 5 interview with a different state investigator, Schoneman revised her earlier words. She said she heard whispering, not sexual noises, although she worried for Donna’s safety.

 Iowa’s sexual assault law doesn’t explicitly define the “mental defect” that the prosecution must prove Donna had. In a review of the statute in 1980, the state Supreme Court said the language “protects those who are so mentally incompetent or incapacitated as to be unable to understand the nature and consequences of the sex act.”

 To show Donna lacked that capability, prosecutors may need something more than the BIMS memory tests referenced in court filings, said Wehry, the Vermont nursing home regulator. She said Donna’s doctors should have completed a broader assessment that gauged her ability to solve problems and make judgments, including judgments about sex.

 “Does she recognize her husband?” Wehry said. “Does she recognize him as her beloved even if she doesn’t know his name? Is she pleased to see him? Has she been interviewed with him present and asked whether she likes his company, whether she wants to have sex?”

 It’s possible that prosecutors possess a more comprehensive assessment. No such report has yet been produced as evidence nor is there a record of one being shown to Henry Rayhons before the alleged assault, attorney Yunek said.

 “This was not a rape,” said Daniel Reingold, president and chief executive of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, a nursing home that has a policy of encouraging consensual sex among its residents, including those with dementia.

 “It sounds like they had a really beautiful relationship,” Reingold said after reviewing the Rayhons case at the request of Bloomberg News. “And the law is depriving a couple of having a marital relationship. It is so big-brother-like, so intrusive, so second-guessing of what a person is experiencing in a dementia state.”

 Rayhons’ trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 28 in Garner. Prosecutors have asked the Hancock County court for a change of venue because they say local media coverage has poisoned the area jury pool.

 Donna’s daughters and Rayhons are now arguing over who should pay the nursing home bills. The daughters recently had their mother’s belongings removed from Rayhons’ condo. The house is still filled with photos of Donna and Rayhons’ first wife, Marvalyn.

 Rayhons said he tries to stay busy. He helped his son Gary and a brother in southern Iowa with the fall harvest. Every few days, he visits the gravesites of each of his wives, in separate cemeteries a few miles apart between Garner and Duncan.

 “I fully believe if the girls had let me take her home, Donna would still be with us,” he said. “They locked me out and I didn’t see her and I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

 To contact the reporter on this story: Bryan Gruley in Chicago at bgruley@bloomberg.net

 To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Brecher at jbrecher4@bloomberg.net Cecile Daurat |||||

 Henry Rayhons, an Iowa state legislator, speaks during an Oct. 8 interview in Garner, Iowa. Rayhons is awaiting trial on a felony charge that he raped his wife, Donna Young, at a nursing home where she was living. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)

 Bryan Gruley (Bloomberg) has a long and detailed story on the prosecution. Here’s a short excerpt:

 The Iowa Attorney General’s office says [Henry] Rayhons had intercourse with his wife when she lacked the mental capacity to consent because she had Alzheimer’s. She died on Aug. 8, four days short of her 79th birthday, of complications from the disease. One week later, Rayhons, 78, was arrested. He pleaded not guilty…. By many accounts, Henry and Donna Rayhons were deeply in love. Both their families embraced their marriage. The case has produced no evidence thus far that the couple’s love faded, that Donna failed to recognize her husband or that she asked that he not touch her, said Rayhons’ son Dale Rayhons, a paramedic and the family’s unofficial spokesman. Based on evidence generated so far, state prosecutors are likely to portray Rayhons as a sex-hungry man who took advantage of a sweet, confused woman who didn’t know what month it was, forgot how to eat a hamburger and lost track of her room.

 The question of how to deal with sex by those who aren’t mentally competent is quite complex; it also arises, of course, with regard to those who are mentally disabled all their lives (see, e.g., this post 10 years ago about an interesting Ninth Circuit decision on this and this follow-up). But I think, in cases like the Rayhons case, the key is to consider the nature of the parties’ past relationship, something Iowa law does to some extent but not enough.

 It’s shocking to me that, until several decades ago, a husband’s forcing his wife to have sex wasn’t generally considered rape in the United States. (It still might not be, at least in some situations and at least as of 2010, in South Carolina.) It seems to me quite obvious that spouses are entitled to say “no.”

 At the same time, it seems to me equally obvious that we must consider the parties’ past and unrevoked consent as relevant in some situations where there’s neither a “no” or a “yes.” If A starts caressing B’s genitals while B is sleeping, that’s generally a serious crime. But if A and B are sexually involved, it seems to me it shouldn’t be a crime at all — especially if this has happened before and both parties were quite happy about it — unless B wakes up and says no, or has indicated lack of consent to such behavior in the past.

 This is just a reflection of the fact that “consent,” like much in life, can be implied and long-lasting and not just express and short-term. If we’re good friends and you keep letting me borrow something, that may be evidence of consent to borrow it even when I’m not around to expressly say, “yes, you can borrow it again.” That immediate consent is impossible, because you’re absent, doesn’t mean that there is no consent. Sex is not identical, of course, to borrowing gardening equipment, but in this respect it strikes me as similar: Even when someone isn’t able to immediately consent, it’s sometimes (though not always) reasonable to determine whether they would have consented by looking to past practice among the parties.

 And this is especially so, I think, when the incapacity is permanent or at least long-lasting. I don’t think the law should require lovers or spouses to wake each other up before touching each other’s genitals, even when past practice suggests this is consensual. But at least such a requirement would only slightly interfere with people’s lives.

 If the law criminalizes sex among lovers altogether once one of them has become mentally incapacitated, however warm their relationship was beforehand, that’s a lifetime constraint. And it’s not just a constraint once the incapacitation sets in. It’s a burden even on people who are not yet incapacitated but who know they are getting there, and who are upset that for many years to come they would be unable to give this sort of pleasure to their life partners — or to get this pleasure from them. If you were facing such a mental decline, would you want to know that the law will “protect” you from your beloved husband or wife this way?

 Interestingly, Iowa law takes this into account in some measure, treating spouses differently from others, though not enough for Mr. Rayhons (or for the hypothetical sleeping couple), and not in a way that covers long-term lovers who aren’t married. Rayhons is charged with third-degree sexual abuse:

 A person commits sexual abuse in the third degree when the person performs a sex act under any of the following circumstances: 1. The act is done by force or against the will of the other person, whether or not the other person is the person’s spouse or is cohabiting with the person. 2. The act is between persons who are not at the time cohabiting as husband and wife and if any of the following are true: a. The other person is suffering from a mental defect or incapacity which precludes giving consent. b. The other person is twelve or thirteen years of age…. c. The other person is fourteen or fifteen years of age and … [t]he person is four or more years older than the other person…. 4. The act is performed while the other person is mentally incapacitated, physically incapacitated, or physically helpless. [From the definitions section:] 1. “Mentally incapacitated” means that a person is temporarily incapable of apprising or controlling the person’s own conduct due to the influence of a narcotic, anesthetic, or intoxicating substance. 2. “Physically helpless” means that a person is unable to communicate an unwillingness to act because the person is unconscious, asleep, or is otherwise physically limited. 3. “Physically incapacitated” means that a person has a bodily impairment or handicap that substantially limits the person’s ability to resist or flee.

 Sex with a permanently mentally incompetent lover is barred under Subdivision 2.a, at least under the prosecutor’s interpretation, unless the lover is both a spouse and cohabiting. I take it that the prosecutor’s theory in the Rayhons case is that the spouses were no longer cohabiting, because the wife was in a nursing home — but that strikes me as a hard-to-justify distinction, though one that the statute does seem to draw. And, to turn to my hypothetical, sexual touching of a sleeping lover is criminalized under subdivision 4, which lacks a spouse limitation.

 Of course, often the law doesn’t cause these problems, because the allegedly injured party doesn’t complain (spouses who get caressed while they’re sleeping probably won’t call the police), because other parties who know don’t complain (the children of parents who are having sex even though one parent has Alzheimer’s probably won’t call the police, either), or because prosecutors will exercise their discretion not to prosecute. But sometimes third parties might learn of the incident — caretakers, housekeepers, or, as seems to have happened in this instance, children of one party from a former marriage — and be upset enough to complain, and a prosecutor might indeed go forward with the case. The law should be crafted to preclude that, I think, as Iowa law does to some extent but not sufficiently.

 For an interesting take on this from a few years ago, see this Slate article by Daniel Engber. Thanks to Hans Bader for the pointer. |||||
What is a summary?

– An Iowa state lawmaker says he loved visiting his wife at a nursing home before her death at age 79. But prosecutors have filed felony charges against him, saying that her Alzheimer's made her unable to consent to his sexual desires, Bloomberg reports via the Washington Post. Henry Rayhons, 78, now out on a $10,000 bond, has declined to run for a 10th straight term in the state House, saying his reputation is ruined. But he seems angrier about how his relationship with his wife, Donna, is being portrayed. "My wife just died and you’re charged with something like this because you prayed by her bed," he says, sobbing. "It hurts. It really hurts." Bloomberg gives a detailed account of how things went sour between Rayhons, Donna's three daughters, and officials at the Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa. The daughters had Donna placed in the home, where Rayhons visited often and wanted sex once or twice daily, one of the daughters said. "Henry likes this a lot," Donna reportedly said while pointing between her legs, and staffers were said to be "sickened." Rayhons was given a physician-approved document saying that Donna couldn't consent to sex, but he allegedly continued and may have admitted as much to a state investigator. "It was not a regular thing," Rayhons told him, saying he "never touched her when she didn’t want it and I only tried to fulfill her need when she asked for it." Iowa state law doesn't help him, stating that sex with a permanently mentally ill lover is illegal unless that person "is both a spouse and cohabiting," the Post notes. Charged with third-degree sexual abuse, Rayhons is scheduled to begin his trial on Jan. 28 in Garner.