DMN INVESTIGATES

Did I read that right? A 45-year-old Dallas businessman with 14 convictions? Living free, with luxury cars and a plane, recruiting investors?

The Securities and Exchange Commission identifies the guy as Alan Todd May and is suing him, alleging that his Prosper Oil & Gas is a Ponzi scheme.

Prosper's Web site includes lots of pretty pictures of drilling rigs. DMN reporter Eric Torbenson says the company started up after May was released from prison in 2007.

May made the news at least once before: While locked up for credit card fraud and parole violations, he was suspected of using a jail pay phone to set up "bogus trade shows in Houston, Austin, Dallas and Denver and getting people to mail him entry fees," the Houston Chronicle reported in 1995.

Remember the Darlie Routier case -- the Rowlett woman who's on Texas' death row for the 1996 stabbing death of one of her boys? Remember how the error-riddled trial transcript delayed the appeal process and raised doubts about its integrity?

Then you'll want to read the rest of this blog post.

"Court administrators would have difficulty justifying courts' continued dependence on stenographic reporting if they were to describe the process by which the majority of state trial courts create, produce, and maintain the official record of the hundreds of thousands of court proceedings annually," a national association of court officials concludes.

The Conference of State Court Administrators' report begins with provocative questions. What, it asks, would ordinary people say "if they learned that thousands of staff are assigned to individual courtrooms to make this manual record even though few cases are appealed? How might they react if they learned that the manual recording of those proceedings is made in a media that could be interpreted into written English only by the individual making the record?

Scott Goldstein, one of the DMN's terrific crime reporters, reveals today that Dallas police have made it much harder for the public to research violent crime data online.

This isn't just a matter of protecting minors or sex-crime victims. DPD's search tool also has removed homicide from its drop-down menu of offenses.

Why? And where is this coming from --- the chief's office? Dallas City Hall?

So far, no one is owning it.

Do you have more info about this? Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

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We get complaints pretty much every day about utility bills and power companies. So do legislators, the Public Utility Commission and, of course, the utilities themselves.

Now one of the biggies, Oncor, is asking the PUC for independent testing of the accuracy of its new smart meters (right), Dallas Morning News reporter Eric Torbenson says.

State Sen. Troy Fraser, chair of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, recently responded to complaints about the meters by asking that their installation be halted. He also urged the PUC to suspend the monthly fee consumers pay for the meters until independent testing is conducted.

Oncor, in its letter to the PUC, says the meters are accurate and blames an unusually cold winter for higher bills.

John Galligan (right), the attorney for Fort Hood massacre defendant Nidal Malik Hasan (lower right), has started a blog and is poking away at the prosecution.

Galligan complains, among other things, that the Army is gearing up for a death-penalty trial but has refused his request for a "mitigation specialist" -- an expert who could address extenuating circumstances that might spare Hasan from capital punishment.

Col. Morgan Lamb denied the defense request "because the mitigation specialist also happens to be an attorney," Galligan writes. "Obviously, Colonel Lamb was not properly advised that this same mitigation specialist has also been requested and approved in another Army capital murder case now pending at Fort Lewis, Washington. In short, the US Army is operating with a double set of standards....

"What is the rationale for such disparate treatment? One can't help but wonder - is it because [Hasan] is Muslim?"

Elsewhere on the blog, for reasons I don't understand, Galligan uses President Obama's middle name (Hussein) when referring to him and misspells his first name.

How does the Army respond to the defense claims? "Fort Hood officials have no plans to comment on personal blogs related to the November 5, 2009 incident," says an e-mail I just received from post spokesman Tyler Broadway.

The DMN didn't do much today with high-flying Dallas real estate agent Nicky Sheets' guilty plea in a big tax evasion case. So here's some help with the back story.

About a year ago, former DMN reporter Gretel Kovach did perhaps the definitive take on Sheets, his star Realtor wife, Eleanor Mowery Sheets (right), and their long history of financial troubles.

Among my favorite details in the D Magazine piece: The trustee in one of their bankruptcy cases details "what he considered the 'most notorious' example of a pattern of shifting assets to avoid payment: Nicky flew his lawyer in a twin engine plane owned by Nicky's JNS Investments to Odessa for a hearing, where he argued that he was just Eleanor's penniless underling." A creditor's lawyer heard about it and went after the plane, "but by the time he had tracked it from a recently vacated hangar at Dallas Love Field to the Addison airfield, it had been repossessed" by someone else.

Eleanor's Web site, before it was taken down, praised her hubby's tax acumen this way:

"Nicky creates the aggressive marketing strategies for our business with an enormous foresight into new trends and technologies. He has a great capacity for staying ahead of the industry and is the creator of many of the formative business transactions we do -- getting people together I'd never have thought of, doing land trades and arranging beneficial tax solutions for buyers and sellers."

The IRS recently tried unsuccessfully to auction the couple's North Dallas home. The "property appraisal and liquidation specialist" was listed as Mary Beth Justice. Her Austin workplace was targeted -- a day after the auction, coincidentally -- by suicide pilot Joe Stack.

DMN reporter Kevin Krause had an astonishing story in Saturday's paper: Some Dallas Country criminal court judges have been handing out virtual pardons for years when releasing convicts from probation. And these elected officials are not explaining themselves.

A little-known provision in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure lets judges turn back the hands of time. They may "set aside the verdict or permit the defendant to withdraw the defendant's plea," the code says, and they can "dismiss the accusation, complaint, information or indictment against the defendant, who shall thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense or crime of which the defendant has been convicted or to which the defendant has pleaded guilty."

Caveats: People convicted of certain violent or sexual crimes are not eligible. Also, judges and licensing agencies who later deal with pardoned probationers may consider their criminal histories.

Here's the fallout, as reported by Kevin: Former Constable Aurelio Castillo was convicted in 2000 of receiving an illegal campaign donation but now is free to run for county clerk, thanks to Judge Ernest White (above right).

And David Chang, a former Dallas police officer who was convicted in 1996 of stealing from motorists during traffic stops, was free to run for Balch Springs mayor in 2008 (he lost). His pardon came from Judge John Creuzot (lower right).

Gov. Rick Perry has had some bad luck recently when appointing prominent Dallasites to state posts. Two of them soon got themselves arrested on charges of misconduct around young people.

The latest mess involves businessman Lee William "Bill" McNutt III (right), whom Perry named Texas Commission on the Arts chair in December. McNutt has since been arrested for trespassing at Southern Methodist University, reports Lori Stahl of The Dallas Morning News.

SMU says it warned him to stay away in 2008 after getting "multiple student complaints against Mr. McNutt alleging behavior that violates University policy, such as offering alcohol to minors."

McNutt, 54, graduated from SMU and was founding president of its Young Alumni Association, a governor's press release said. He worked in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush, according to the arts commission.

McNutt has resigned from the commission, The Daily Mustang is now reporting.

He's also a deacon at Highland Park Presbyterian Church.

The previous Perry-appointee mess involved Catherine Evans, a former Dallas County state district judge.

Perry named her Texas Youth Commission ombudsman in September. Several weeks later, she was charged with trying to smuggle a knife, a cellphone and prescription drugs into an East Texas TYC facility.

Please let me know if you get more information about what's going with either of these matters.

When an electric meter is cut off, it's hard to accept being billed for electricity.

That's what happened to Damian McDowan. He shut off his own meter and left town for four months, but then he received a bill of $409 for usage from TXU Energy. He paid, but argued for seven months that it was an erroneous charge. Finally in frustration, he called me. He was ultimately refunded his money.

McDowan also was frustrated that he had to sign up with a different electricity provider during that time period. TXU Energy did want him back as a customer and paid the money to get him out of his cancelled contract.

A recent brush with catastrophe at DISD's Samuell High School didn't teach several principals elsewhere in town any lessons.

After Samuell students fleeing a blaze found an exit chained shut, local fire officials performed surprise inspections on 31 public high schools. Eight were caught locking fire exits, reports The Dallas Morning News' Diane Rado.

Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, said he was "livid" about the findings and ordered principals to obey the fire code. But what are officials going to do about the crime concerns that led principals to lock doors in the first place?

The eight high schools cited for violations were:

* A. Maceo Smith
* Carter
* Kimball
* Molina
* Pinkston
* Roosevelt
* Skyline
* South Oak Cliff

Please let me know if you get more information about what's going.

One of Texas' top tourist attractions opens for the season Saturday. But will SeaWorld San Antonio's best known show go on?

Company officials aren't saying what the future holds after a killer whale lived up to its name yesterday at SeaWorld Orlando. Horrified tourists watched as trainer Dawn Brancheau (right) perished, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Tilikum, the orca that killed her, had been involved in the deaths of two other people -- a trainer in 1991 and a visitor who sneaked past security in 1999.

SeaWorld isn't saying much today on its Web site -- just this: "SeaWorld Orlando and SeaWorld San Diego will be open Thursday, February 25 as scheduled (SeaWorld San Antonio is not yet open for the season) but Believe shows and Dine with Shamu experiences at all SeaWorld locations have been suspended; no decision has been made for future dates at this time."

Do you have a tip about amusement park safety? Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Rarely have I talked with someone who speaks so unflinchingly as retired Army Capt. Shannon Meehan (right).

First he wrote the book Beyond Duty, explaining how he accidentally killed a family in Iraq and how depression nearly killed him afterward.

Then, shortly after the Fort Hood massacre, he told me that shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been seeking to have psychiatric patients on the base prosecuted for war crimes.

That wasn't a popular thing to say at the time, given that a Hood higher-up had recently called Hasan a "hardworking, dedicated young man who gave great care to his patients." Speaking up also meant Meehan had to reveal that he had been a psych patient at the Central Texas post.

His latest soul-baring appears this week in The New York Times, where he also issues a challenge to us civilians:

"In recent months I've been trying to honor the lives I took by writing and speaking in public about my experience, to show that those deaths are not tucked neatly away in a foreign land," Meehan writes. "They may seem distant, but they are not. Soldiers bring the ghosts home with them, and it's everyone else's job to hear about them, no matter how painful it may be."

Mesquite police and ISD officials stonewalled when The Dallas Morning News asked what they found on longtime school board member Randy Dobbs' district-issued laptop.

Whatever it was made Dobbs (right) resign, even though officials said he'd committed no crime. So reporter Karel Holloway did what good reporters do: She filed an open-records request. And now, at last, the tawdry truth is out, thanks to a ruling from the Texas attorney general:

Dobbs' laptop contained "hundreds of pornographic images and videos of clearly adult male subject," Karel reports today, citing a police report. "Dobbs was a participant in many of the images."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is a high-profile national organization that speaks out frequently when it believes Muslims are being mistreated.

Recently, for example, it denounced the introduction of full-body scanners in airports as a violation of Islamic rules about modesty. Its Web site carries many press releases on a variety of civil rights issues.

But CAIR has been quiet about the recent deportation order against Richardson resident Nabil Sadoun (left), a longtime member of the group's national and DFW chapter boards.

When I asked national CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper for an interview, he responded with this e-mail: "Peace. Perhaps speak to his attorney. She is the best source of information on the case." Hooper did not respond when I followed up with written questions about CAIR's view of the deportation case and its relationship with Sadoun.

Sadoun's attorney, Kimberly Kinser of Richardson, didn't respond to my phone call and e-mail.

Last week's fire at Dallas' Samuell High School exposed the "fairly common" practice of chaining school exit doors, The DMN's Diane Rado reports today. Her main source: the State Fire Marshal's Office.

Principals, it seems, are creating firetraps in the name of preventing crime.

A chained door at Samuell temporarily trapped people who were trying to evacuate Thursday, though no one was hurt. The DISD Blog gave one teacher's scary account of the mess.

A Samuell official says the door was chained because locking it from the outside didn't provide sufficient security. Students inside would open the door, sometimes allowing weapons into the school.

Do you have a tip about fire safety? School security? Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

If you're on Twitter, follow our blog at DMNInvestigates. You can also check us out on Facebook.

East Texas church arson suspect Jason Robert Bourque (right) calls himself "Mr. Brightside" on his MySpace page, lists his religion as "Christian -- other" and prominently displays this quote from the 19th century anti-Christian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:

"Never give way to remorse, but immediately say to yourself: that would merely mean adding a second stupidity to the first. -- If you have done harm, see how you can do good. -- If you are punished for your actions, bear the punishment with the feeling that you ARE doing good -- by deterring others from falling prey to the same folly. Every evildoer who is punished may feel that he is a benefactor of humanity."

On his Facebook page, Bourque says he's a fan of bonfires. A couple of clicks takes you to hundreds of photos of blazes.

Bourque was arrested Sunday with Daniel George McAllister (lower right). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives blames the two for a string of 10 recent church fires in East Texas.

The two men used to attend a Baptist church in the East Texas town of Ben Wheeler that was not torched, says Dallas Morning News reporter Richard Abshire.

The New York Times has a fascinating background piece today on the tax law that software engineer Andrew Joseph Stack III (right) blasted in his suicide note.

The 1986 legislation started as a favor to IBM and "made it extremely difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals, forcing most to become company employees," The Times reported. "Many software engineers and other such professionals say that the law denies them the opportunity to become wealthy entrepreneurs and that it makes it harder to increase and refine their skills, eventually diminishing their income."

Joe Stack, in the note he posted online before flying a plane into IRS offices in Austin yesterday, said those who wrote the law "could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave."

Not a rant -- a tip.

Send me an e-mail or join the conversation by commenting below.

What we have so far: A small plane crashed this morning into the Echelon office complex in northwest Austin. Austin TV station KVUE says the building that was hit is at 9430 Research Blvd.

The IRS has offices there, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

And the FBI has a field office elsewhere in the complex, at 9420 Research Blvd.

CNN, citing an unnamed official, says: "The pilot of the plane had set his house on fire beforehand, stole the plane and crashed it intentionally."

If you're on Twitter, follow our blog at DMNInvestigates. You can also check us out on Facebook.

A little over a week ago, I was blogging about safety issues at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines.

Now my investigative reporting colleague in Washington, Dave Michaels, is breaking a story about similar problems at Fort Worth-based American.

"Federal regulators have failed to correct mounting and long-standing maintenance deficiencies at American Airlines despite receiving detailed complaints about the carrier's problems," Dave writes, citing a report due to be released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general.

The Federal Aviation Administration responded by saying it has been working with American to "elevate its maintenance practices" and was strengthening its oversight of other carriers.

FAA officials proposed a $2.9 million fine Wednesday against American Eagle for flying inadequately repaired planes, The Dallas Morning News' Eric Torbenson reported.

AA and Southwest say they're proud of their safety records.

Some readers noted that I mentioned an average monthly temperature for the Dallas area in a previous column and wondered where to get that information.

The easiest place to go is the National Weather Service.

To find the average for each month, the information is located in the notes. To do a month-to-month comparison, you'll have to pull the information out yourself, though.

To look into things on a daily basis, I go to the University of Dayton's website where they keep average daily temperatures for the Dallas area. They also use the official weather service numbers and it's really easy to read.