NEWS: MARINE & WIFE KILLED / HUDSON CASE UPDATE / KILPATRICK HOPES TO KEEP LICENSE

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana, were tortured and killed execution-style in their California home allegedly by four Marines under his command.

The couple were found bound and gagged in the ransacked house and each had been shot in the head.

Pietrzak’s mother, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, said she prepared herself “for the possibility that my son could die in Iraq, but to die like this, in their own home? They were good kids. They didn’t deserve to die like this.”

“She was our only child and my best friend,” Faye Jenkins, Quiana’s mother said. “He was like my son. He was so proud to be a Marine. But when he was off the base, he was my son.”

Deputies were dispatched to the Pietrzak home in Winchester, an exurb of San Diego, when he didn’t show up for work. They found the Pietrzaks in the living room and evidence the robbers tried to hide their tracks by torching the house.

Charged with murder and other crimes are Pvt. Emrys John, 18, of Maryland; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20, of North Carolina; Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20, of Tennessee, and Pvt. Kesuan Sykes, 21, of California.

Following a preliminary hearing on Monday, William Balfour, the only suspect named so far in the triple homicide of Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew, will remain in prison at least through December 3, when a full hearing will be held to determine if he violated his parole.

According to reports, Balfour, the estranged husband of Julia Hudson, had not attended any of his anger-management classes, had not attended any of his substance-abuse counseling sessions, had not been available for visits with his parole officer and had been seen in places were drugs were sold or distributed, which resulted in an arrest for cocaine possession in June.

Balfour’s girlfriend, Shonta Cathey, had claimed she had seen Balfour with a gun the day before the murders that was allegedly identical to the gun found by authorities. An unnamed source told the Chicago Tribune that Balfour told her he was involved in the shootings.

Balfour was out on parole from the Illinois River Correctional Center on attempted-murder, carjacking and stolen-property charges, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to serve seven years in 1999. Balfour was paroled in 2006, but if he is found at the December 3 hearing to have violated his parole, he will have to serve out the remainder of his term, until May 2009. Until that hearing, Balfour will remain at the reception center at Stateville Correctional Center.

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who pleaded guilty and resigned amid multiple scandals earlier this year, is hoping to salvage his license to practice law.

As part of his plea deal, Kilpatrick lost his law license, but noted that he was doing so “under protest”. His attorneys are now appealing the decision to Michigan’s lawyer regulatory board.

Attorney Phillip Thomas said, “What happened was totally unprecedented. There are lawyers out there convicted of manslaughter and very, very serious felonies that this doesn’t happen to.”

The state’s Attorney Discipline Board has given Kilpatrick until the end of November to file an argument as to why the disbarment order shouldn’t be finalized.