Empathy defense offered in Araujo case
Testimony to end next week, closing arguments tentatively scheduled for June 1
By Ivan Delventhal, STAFF WRITER

HAYWARD -- Instinctive empathy, rather than a guilty conscience, could have led one of three men charged with killing a transgender Newark teenager to help his friends bury the body, a psychiatrist called by the defense testified in court Thursday.

But under cross-examination, the psychiatrist also acknowledged that empathy could have led the man to participate in the slaying.

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld, a Sausalito psychiatrist, was summoned Thursday as the final witness for defendant Jason Cazares as testimony in the murder trial neared its conclusion at the Hayward Hall of Justice.


~

State police won't investigate officers accused of lying
By: Kym Soper, Journal Inquirer
State police say they have no plans to reopen an investigation or to discipline two officers accused by a state panel of lying in a sexual-harassment complaint against a supervisor.

The state review board in January exonerated the supervisor, Lt. Wayne L. Rioux, of all charges.

Rioux, a former commander of Troop B in North Canaan, was relieved of his command and suspended for a month without pay following an internal affairs investigation that found he had sexually harassed subordinates in the summer of 2002.

Rioux, 50, was accused of making sexually explicit comments that included references to female anatomy and using language offensive to homosexuals.

Rioux vehemently denied the charges and appealed to the State Employee Review Board, which hears the personnel grievances of nonunion state managers