The Daily Record News Briefs: August 21, 2008

Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Aug 21, 2008

RBA seeks ATHENA nominations

The Rochester Business Alliance's Women's Council is seeking nominations for its 23rd annual ATHENA Award, which recognizes area businesswomen for professional, personal and community service achievements.

An international program, the ATHENA Award program actively supports and celebrates women leaders, organizers say. All nominees will be honored at a luncheon at noon, Jan. 22 at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center, at which time the 2009 ATHENA Award recipient will be announced.

The deadline for submitting nominations is Wednesday, Oct. 22.

Nominations may be submitted by e-mail, or mail to: ATHENA Award c/o Women's Council, 150 State St., Suite 400, Rochester, N.Y. 14614. For more information or a nomination guidelines, go to www.grwc.com or call Susan George at (585) 256-4612.

City to host Colgate Country Showdown

City of Rochester officials have announced that their Bands on the Bricks summer concert series will close out with the Colgate Country Showdown, a national touring talent search starting 6. p.m., Friday, Aug. 22 at Rochester Public Market, 280 North Union Street.

Billed as the nation's largest country music talent search, the Colgate show will feature local performers as part of a competition that could eventually net them $100,000 and a recording contract.

Roughly 50,000 new artists enter the competition every year, organizers say. Audience members are given judging sheets to rate performers. Once the results are tallied, the winner will move on to compete at the state, regional and national level.

City officials say vender slots are still available for the event. Interested venders should call (585) 428 6907 for more information.

ABA links lawyers with military

The American Bar Association is launching a project that will allow civilian lawyers to represent active-duty military personnel in state and local courts.

Incoming ABA President H. Thomas Wells Jr. announced the "ABA Military Pro Bono Project" last week.

The ABA project matches service men and women in need of legal representation in civil cases with volunteer lawyers from private firms. Under the project, active-duty service personnel and their eligible family members in need of legal representation first receive vetting from the judge advocate general officers on their military bases.

All cases referred will originate from a lawyer in a JAG office from one of the five service branches. The JAG lawyer conducts an initial interview to collect substantive case information and to determine income eligibility. Typically most referred clients are expected to have a pay grade of E6 or lower. The JAG lawyer also will determine if the case is legally meritorious and has adequate cause for referral.

A Web site developed for the project will facilitate matching service member cases and volunteer lawyers. Qualified firms wishing to volunteer to take these cases on a pro bono basis will register at the site. A match will occur when a case in a firm's geographic area falls in its substantive legal area of expertise. The Web site is at www.militaryprobono.org.

Lawsuit claims women's studies unconstitutional

A man who is already crusading against ladies' nights in bars has sued Columbia University, saying its women's studies program is unconstitutional.

Attorney Roy Den Hollander filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court.

The lawsuit claims the college program is discriminatory because there's no comparable men's program. It says the university uses government aid to promote a religious belief system known as feminism.

The suit seeks a men's program or an end to the women's program.

A Columbia University spokesman says he has no comment.

Hollander last year sued over ladies' nights at Manhattan nightclubs. Nightclub attorneys call the pending lawsuit frivolous.

Strange identity theft case hits Ivy League

A Montana woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing the identity of a missing South Carolina woman to attend Columbia University in what her lawyer called a bid to escape a painful past.

Esther Elizabeth Reed, 30, pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft charges in federal court in Greenville. She faces up to 47 years in prison and $1 million in fines for ID theft, mail fraud, wire fraud and loan fraud charges.

Reed was indicted last year for using Brooke Henson's identity to get into Columbia University. Hensen has been missing since 1999, and investigators have said they do not think Reed was involved in her disappearance.

Prosecutors have said that, starting in March 2001, Reed juggled six false identities to attend California State University at Fullerton and Columbia. She concocted various stories about herself, including that she earned her living as a chess champion and had to change her name because she was in a witness protection program. In 2004, she began attending Columbia, using Henson's name to get student loans and submitting an SAT score of 1400, which prosecutors say she earned on her own merits.

Asked why her client stole others' identities to attend college, despite her own academic abilities, her lawyer, Ann Marie Fitz, said her client did so to shed a painful past but would not elaborate.