Ronald “Spider” Hamilton, an old-school gangster featured in the History Channel’s Gangland series, was sentenced this morning to eight-and-a-half years in prison after a violent freakout at a Denny’s in Southeast Portland last spring.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Edward Jones gave Hamilton 90 months on a Measure 11 armed robbery charge plus 12 months for violating probation on a prior felony domestic-violence conviction.

Jones also gave Hamilton two six-month convictions on two counts of harassment, but those sentences will run concurrently to the rest of his prison time.

As detailed in WW last week, a jury found Hamilton guilty of walking into a Denny’s last June, roughing up a couple in the video poker room, then busting open the cash register and stealing gift cards. The cards were worthless, however, because they’d never been validated.

Hamilton was wearing only boxers and a tank top with no shoes. He told police he’s been smoking a cigarette laced with sherm, or liquid PCP.

It was a long fall from grace for Hamilton, who was featured in a 2005 WW cover story as the owner of an illegal after-hours club. In an April episode of Gangland about Portland’s Hoover Criminals, he described moving from Los Angeles to Portland in the early 1990s, helping the gang flourish here through cocaine trafficking and violence.

After Hamilton was arrested driving down I-205 in a late-model Cadillac sedan on the night of his freakout, he expressed surprise that police failed to recognize him from TV.

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A source in the Washington County legal community tells WW several defense lawyers are planning a silent protest in court this morning based on our Rogue of the Week.

The lawyers plan to hold copies of the current issue of WW during the weekly case assignment session in Washington County Circuit Judge Thomas Kohl’s courtroom. The meeting lasts about two hours, and at least one representative from the DA’s office always attends.

Our current Rogue describes how the Washington County District Attorney’s office is using a domestic-violence law to prosecute a teenage driver. The move shocked Secretary of State Kate Brown, who wrote the law as a state senator in 1997 and told WW she’s “horrified” it’s being used this way.

Our source says Jason Weiner, the deputy district attorney who made that charging decision, is often in attendance at the weekly session where Judge Kohl assigns each case pending trial to a specific judge in the Hillsboro courthouse.

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More than two years after his fellow flyer committed suicide, a Canadian pilot who landed in Eastern Oregon with nearly 1,000 pounds of weed on board was sentenced today to four years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ordered Harvey Gabel to turn himself in to the Bureau of Prisons on Jan. 28, 2010, to serve his term. Gabel, 60, is a resident of Langley, B.C.

According to a news release (PDF) from the U.S. Attorney’s office, Gabel and another pilot, Brian Lindroos, landed a twin-engine Cessna in Burns on Nov. 19, 2005, after crossing the Canadian border without authorization or a flight plan.

Police drove to the Burns Municipal Airport and found the two men standing at the fuel pumps. A strong smell of marijuana prompted the cops to search the plane, where they found 995.6 pounds of pot stacked to the ceiling.

According to authorities, the weed was worth $2.4 million. They also seized 270 grams of cocaine, two laptops, four cell phones, two GPS systems and thousands of dollars in Canadian and U.S. currency.

In a sad footnote to the “war on drugs,” Lindroos was indicted as a co-defendant, but he was found in April 2007 in a wooded area on Sumas Mountain in British Columbia, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(The photo above is of a random twin-engine Cessna and is not intended to depict the plane Gabel and Lindroos were flying.)

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Our current Rogue of the Week, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office, drew ire from two prominent Oregon politicos over the decision to charge a teenage driver with felony domestic violence.

One of the beauties of the web is it’s not bound by space. So we’re expanding here with additional quotes and context.

In interviews with WW, Secretary of State Kate Brown and state Sen. Ginny Burdick (D-Southwest Portland) both said bringing the charge against Yesenia Aguilar Gutierrez flies in the face of the law’s intent to protect domestic-violence victims.

They ought to know. Brown wrote the law as a state senator in 1997, and Burdick was a co-sponsor.

“I’m just gravely concerned that they would be using this legislation that was clearly targeted regarding the harms around domestic violence,” Brown says. “A huge portion of kids in the foster system are there due to domestic violence. That was the intent of the bill.”

A little background on the case: Last July, Aguilar crashed into a stop sign on her way home to Hillsboro. The passenger-side airbag deployed, striking her 4-year-old niece, who was sitting on the lap of Aguilar’s 15-year-old brother Julian.

The niece, Alondra, should have been in a child seat. She was injured with a bruise and cuts to her cheek. The cops cited Aguilar, who was 18 at the time, for misdemeanor reckless endangering. But Jason Weiner, a Washington County deputy district attorney, upped the charge to felony fourth-degree assault based on Brown’s 1997 law.

That law, Senate Bill 553, aimed to crack down on domestic violence by making it a felony to commit assault in the presence of a minor who resides in the household of the assailant or the victim. It also created felonies for repeat domestic-violence offenders.

Because Julian witnessed Aguilar’s alleged assault on Alondra, and he lives with Aguilar, Weiner says the law applies. A grand jury agreed. But like Brown, Burdick is shocked the law is being applied to this case.

“Oh my goodness, that was not the intent of the law. Absolutely not,” Burdick says. “When a child witnesses parents or step-parents beating each other, it’s very traumatic on the child. A car accident is also traumatic for a child, but the situation you are describing is not the intent of the law.”

“I would vote for that bill again,” Burdick adds, “but that’s not what it was intended (to do).”

Weiner declined to discuss the case in detail, citing bar ethics rules that prevent him from doing so. But he dismissed concerns by Brown and Burdick, saying he applied the law as written.

“They’re entitled to say that,” Weiner says. “The statue itself reads the way it reads. I don’t believe it’s been misapplied in this case. I’m certainly not going to criticize them for having their opinion, and I guess if they feel so strongly about it, they can do something to change it (the law).”

Weiner declined to say whether he checked with District Attorney Bob Hermann or Chief Deputy District Attorney Rob Bletko before pursuing the felony assault charge.

Meanwhile Aguilar’s defense attorney, Drew Baumchen, says he’s ready to fight.

“We intend to challenge this charge in court,” Baumchen says, “because we think the Legislature intended this law be used for domestic violence cases.”

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A federal judge warned in court today he may move the civil trial over the death of James Chasse Jr. out of Portland because heavy media coverage may have poisoned the pool of jurors.

“We’re going to have a heck of a time finding a jury in this case that has not read information or come to some opinion based on information that may or may not be relevant,” said U.S. District Court Judge Garr King. “Every time I see an article about this case, it adds to the possibility that we will have to move.”

King denied a motion by Tom Steenson, the attorney for Chasse’s family, that would have forced the city to turn over records of the cops’ internal investigation into Chasse’s 2006 death in police custody. King said he feared making the documents public would lead to more news stories.

“As you know, I’m very concerned about trying this case in the newspapers at this time,” King said.

Steenson claimed he needs the documents in order to counter statements the city made when Police Chief Rosie Sizer announced last month that the officers’ use of force on Chasse did not violate police policy.

Steenson claimed the city’s statements violated a protective order preventing release of information. That order was granted by U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Hubel at the city’s request.

“The city thinks it’s OK to violate Judge Hubel’s order and release cherry-picked pieces of information,” Steenson said. “Why do they get a one-way street, when the internal record tells a very different story than the information they’re releasing?”

King noted that Steenson had not asked for sanctions against the city for allegedly violating the protective order. He was simply denying Steenson’s request to release the Internal Affairs records.

King said the case is “well on the road” to a change in venue, adding that he understands the city will make a request to change location of the trial. Deputy City Attorney Jim Rice agreed, saying the city is looking into that possibility.

As for City Commissioner Randy Leonard’s public statement last week that Chasse’s death was “completely unjustifiable and inexcusable,” King asked Rice what effect such comments from an elected official may have on the city’s case.

Rice didn’t directly answer King’s question.

“I have always urged everyone not to make public comments in this case,” Rice said. “I have urged them to try this case in court.”

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Over the weekend, a 13-person selection committee interviewed candidates for two plum federal law enforcement posts in Oregon: U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal.

The U.S. Attorney’s spot in particular is a high-profile position and highly desirable. Going into the weekend, many insiders speculated that Dwight Holton, an assistant U.S. Attorney was likely to be one of three finalists. The son of a former Virginia governor and the brother-in-law of current Virginia governor and Democratic National Committee boss Tim Kaine, Holton is connected, as well as being a well-regarded prosecutor.

But the list of three finalists released today by the offices of Oregon’s two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, did not include Holton. The three finalists are Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, whose strong law-and-order stance sometimes draws fire from liberals and seemed to make him a long shot for the job; Amanda Marshall, a McMinnville resident who is the assistant attorney in charge of the Oregon Department of Justice’s child advocacy section; and acting U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson, who has been a federal prosecutor for 29 years.

For the U.S. Marshal job, the finalists are Lane County Sheriff Russell Burger; James Ferraris, a Portland Police Bureau Commander; Gerald Gregg, a retired Oregon State Police Captain; and former Gresham Police Chief Carla Piluso.

Deschutes County District Attorney Mike Dugan was chairman of the selection committee. Wyden and Merkley will now forward the finalists chosen by the committee to the White House.

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Two men released early on Saturday night for lack of space in the Multnomah County Detention Center have been found dead of a drug overdose, the state Medical Examiner’s office has confirmed.

Jamie Daniel Coleman (top photo), 22, and Rex Albert Rumer (bottom photo), 51, were both found dead on Monday, says Damon O’Brien, deputy medical examiner.

O’Brien declined to release further details, including where the two men were found and which drug killed them. But a source tells WW authorities suspect that the two men met in custody and were doing drugs together after their release.

Detective Mary Wheat, spokeswoman for the Portland Police, says the bodies were found in an apartment on the 13400 block of Southeast Stark Street on Monday afternoon. The police Drugs and Vice Division is investigating the deaths in an effort to locate the dealer, Wheat says.

Coleman and Rumer were released early along with 24 other inmates on Saturday night. As reported yesterday on wweek.com, the release was among the largest of the county’s so-called “emergency releases” this year.

Such releases were once rampant in the county jails. Then came a 15-month lull starting in the first half of 2008 when no prisoners needed to be released. Some county officials attributed the decline in emergency releases to a drop in crime. But the lull ended in June of this year, when the jails again started to fill to capacity and occasional emergency releases resumed.

Peter Ozanne, county Chair Ted Wheeler’s deputy chief operating officer for public safety, called the deaths a “tragedy.” He says the incident shows the need for more drug treatment and community supervision.

“The jail bed’s a Band-Aid in that context,” Ozanne says. “I’d much rather see these people supervised on their release with treatment. That’s where I put my money, and that’s what I would recommend to the board.”

Ozanne added that further cuts in the number of jail beds are possible in the coming months due to lack of funds.

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Even a world-class mind-reader and interdimensional traveler can face real-world problems like legal bills.

Eric Pepin, a self-proclaimed psychic master from Beaverton who teaches enlightenment at his Higher Balance Institute, is being sued by the lawyers who defended Pepin against a former acolyte who claimed Pepin sexually abused him when he was 17.

Pepin, the subject of a recent WW cover story, was acquitted of related sex-abuse charges by a Washington County judge in 2007. But the alleged victim, who goes by the initials “CNY” in court, filed a civil lawsuit in 2008 that dragged Pepin into a 20-month legal battle until Pepin settled the case for an undisclosed sum in August.

Portland lawyers John Kaempf and Scott Brooksby represented Pepin in the civil case. In the latest twist, their firm Brooksby Kaempf filed suit against Pepin on Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court seeking $61,138 in alleged unpaid legal fees.

Higher Balance Vice President Eric Robison told WW earlier this year that  sales had dropped from $2 million to $1.5 million a year as a result of the well-publicized sex-abuse allegations.

Robison says Higher Balance’s insurance paid a portion of the company’s legal expenses but that the outstanding bill is for Pepin’s own defense. Robison says Pepin filed for personal bankruptcy last week. But the suit for unpaid legal fees names both Pepin and Higher Balance as defendants.

Here’s a statement from Pepin that Robison sent by email:

“Although successful, my previous legal battles have also been numerous and financially consuming. With the added weight of a declining economy I, like many others, have reluctantly decided to file for personal bankruptcy. I believe this will relieve Higher Balance from the burden of incurring debt on my behalf and offer it a much more secure future. This in no way should effect Higher Balance and surely only make it a more successful service.”

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Look closely at the City Council’s consent agenda for tomorrow, and you’ll notice an ordinance to accept the donation of “services and products used for the construction of [an] energy efficient and nature friendly single family home.”

Meanwhile, over at the city’s website for contract opportunities, there’s an open bid for builders who may be interested in erecting a “water house” also known as a “sustainable/energy efficient home.”

So what’s up with that?

Water Bureau Director David Shaff explains.

The bureau better known for delivering drinking water also has numerous pieces of property it says it doesn’t need. About 40, Shaff says, including one in outer Northeast Portland.

Rather than just sell the lot, which is surrounded by homes, the Water Bureau has decided to turn it into a showcase for sustainable and affordable homes, Shaff says. “Why not build a house to show infill can happen, that it can match the neighborhood, that it can be done in a sustainable fashion and that neighbors can accept?” Shaff says. “We could have just sold it, but then we would have had to deal with neighbors who might have been upset with what was built.”

The idea is to build the house with donated goods, then leave it open for a year so Portlanders can tour the model home. A caretaker will live at the site and keep an eye on the home, too, Shaff says.

On the money front: Shaff says the bureau is neither aiming to make a profit nor lose money; the sale of the home is supposed to cover the cost of the building. “Hopefully, it will cost me nothing,” Shaff says.

There are a number of curious footnotes to this story. One is that Bonny McKnight — one of the six neighborhood activists who ran against Leonard in 2004 — lives near the outer Northeast Portland lot the Water Bureau wants to develop. And, according to Shaff, she approves of the project’s design, on which neighbors have given advice. (McKnight wasn’t immediately available for comment.)

A call to Leonard was not immediately returned.

Finally, here’s a PDF of the ordinance itself.

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For those who remember our interview last year with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, today’s news should come as no surprise.

The Justice Department issued a memo to federal prosecutors telling them them not to target medical-marijuana patients and their sanctioned suppliers.

While most of Oregon’s Democratic leaders remain mealy-mouthed about the marijuana issue, it appears the Obama administration is ready to relax a bit after the Bush years. Meanwhile, Oregon’s more forward-looking advocates of marijuana use are gathering signatures for a 2010 ballot measure to finally legalize it.

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