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Required donation results in lawsuit for Met
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Before visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art can stroll past the Picassos, Renoirs, Rembrandts and other priceless works, they must first deal with the ticket line, the posted $25 adult admission and the meaning of the word in smaller type just beneath it: "recommended."
Many people, especially foreign tourists, don't see it, don't understand it or don't question it. If they ask, they are told the fee is merely a suggested donation: You can pay what you wish, but you must pay something
In this Tuesday, March 19, 2013 photo, visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York congregate in the main lobby.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Confusion over what's required to enter one of the world's great museums, which draws more than 6 million visitors a year, is at the heart of a class-action lawsuit this month accusing the Met of scheming to de-
years, though some who choose to pay less than the full price pull out a $10 or $5 bill. Some fork over a buck or loose change. Those who balk at paying anything at all are told they won't be allowed in unless they pay something, even a penny.
"I just asked for one adult general admissions and he just said, '$25," says Richard Johns, a high school math teacher from Little Rock, Ark., who paid the full price at the museum this past week. "It should be made clear that it is a donation you are required to make. Especially for foreign tourists who don't understand. Most people
"...The museum has been converted into an elite tourist attraction."
fraud the public into believing the fees are required.
The suit seeks compensation for museum members and visitors who paid by credit card over the past few
don't know it."
ARNOLD WEISS
Attorney
M e t spokesman Harold Holzer denied any deception and said a policy of requiring visitors to pay at least something has been in place for
regard to their financial circumstances," said Arnold Weiss, one of two attorneys who filed the lawsuit on behalf of three museum-goers, a New Yorker and two tourists from the Czech Republic. "But instead, the museum has been converted into an elite tourist attraction."
more than four decades. "We are confident that the courts will see through this insupportable nuisance lawsuit," he said.
"The museum was designed to be open to everyone, without
Among the allegations are that third-party websites do not mention the recommended fee, and that the museum sells memberships that carry the benefit of free admission,
even though the public is already entitled to free admission.
New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs agreed to the museum's request in 1970 for a general admission as long as the amount was left up to individuals and that the signage reflected that. Similar arrangements are in place for other cultural institutions that operate on city-owned land and property and receive support from the city, such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Brooklyn Museum. It's also a model that's been replicated in other cities.
A random sampling of visitors leaving the museum found that there was a general awareness that "recommended" imputed you could pay less than the posted price.
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POLICE REPORTS
- A 19-year-old male was arrested yesterday on the 1800 block of Iowa Street under suspicion of no valid driver's license and no insurance. A $200 bond was paid.
- A 22-year-old male was arrested yesterday on the 900 block of Alabama Street under suspicion of driving while intoxicated, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of controlled 'substance. A $1,500 bond was paid.
- A 27-year-old male was arrested yesterday on the 900 block of Iowa Street under suspicion of disorderly conduct. A $100 bond was paid.
Emily Donovan
Before he left office in February, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to extend to same-sex partners of military personnel cer-
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Oct. 1, 2012 photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, a U.S. Army carry team transfers the remains of Army Sgt. Donna R. Johnson of Raeford, N.C., at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Johnson was assigned to the 514th Military Police Company, 60th Troop Command, Winterville, N.C. When Johnson was killed in Afghanistan, her wife, North Carolina National Guardwoman Tracy Dice Johnson, heard about it from her sister-in-law.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Same-sex couples denied survivor benefits
The death certificate read "single," even though the fallen soldier was married.
When it came time to inform the next of kin, casualty officers did not go to the widow's door in North Carolina, nor did she receive the flag that draped the casket of her beloved, a 29-year-old National Guard member killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
Because federal law defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the military did not recognize the relationship of Army Sgt. Donna R. Johnson and Tracy Dice Johnson at all, rendering Johnson ineligible for the most basic survivor benefits, from return of the wedding ring recovered from the body to a monthly indemnity payment of $1,215.
"You cannot imagine the pain, to actually be shut out," said Dice Johnson, an Army staff sergeant who survived five bomb explosions during a 15-month tour in Iraq. "Not only is one of their soldiers being disrespected. Two of them are being disrespected."
As the Supreme Court prepares to consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, gay marriage advocates are focusing attention on the way they say the law dishonors gay service members and their spouses, who are denied survivor payments, plots in veterans' cemeteries, base housing and a host of other benefits that have been available to opposite-sex military couples for generations.
If the high court strikes down the DOMA, the ruling could bring sweeping changes to the way the military treats widows and widowers such as Dice Johnson, the first person to lose a same-sex spouse to war since "don't ask, don't tell" was lifted in 2011.
Although they can now serve openly, gay and lesbian service
members "are anything but equal, and it's the DOMA that is really what's standing in the way", said Allyson Robinson, a West Point graduate who serves as executive director of OutServe-SLDN, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service members and veterans that filed a brief urging the court to strike down the law.
Chapman Alliance for Religious Liberty, an association of faith groups that screen chaplains for military service. It has asked justices to uphold the DOMA on the grounds that pastors and service members from religions that oppose homosexuality would find their voices silenced and their opportunities for advancement limited.
On the other side stands the
Retired Col. Ron Crews, the group's executive director, said Congress could find ways to honor war widows such as Dice Johnson without striking down the DOMA, which he said had served as "a wall" protecting military personnel with strong religious beliefs since the ban on openly gay service members was eliminated.
"The military has no tolerance for racists, so service members who are openly racist are not service members for long," the alliance's brief states. "And if the traditional religious views on marriage and family become the constitutional equivalent of racism, the many service members whose traditional religious beliefs shape their lives will be forced out of the military."
tain benefits not precluded by the DOMA, including ID cards giving them access to on-base services and visitation rights at military hospitals. Some of those measures would have eased Dice Johnson's grief, if they had been in place earlier.
In the future, for example, samesex survivors of service members will be eligible to receive a deceased partner's personal effects and to be presented with the folded flag at the
"You cannot imagine the pain, to actually be shut out."
TRACY DICE JOHNSON
Widow
ot the two men who lost their lives alongside Johnson on Oct. 1, heard the news from an Army casualty officer. But Dice Johnson, 43, found out from her sister-in-law. Johnson could not list her as primary next-of-kin since the government did not recognize their marriage.
Former Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral who was the
The widows
highest-ranking officer ever elected to Congress, said such inequities have implications for national security. Many financial protections and support services are offered to military families not just out of gratitude, but so service members can focus on their jobs during dangerous deployments, Sestak said.
"When you step back and all of a sudden realize that a law would actually prevent, today, the spouse of somebody in our military (being) notified first that that solider or that sailor has been harmed or killed ... you sit back there and say, 'What's going on?' he said.
Dice Johnson does not fault the Army. From the casualty officer to National Guard commanders, everyone did "the best they could." she said. In some instances, she was even surprised at her support. The condolence letter she received from President Barack Obama acknowledged Johnson as her wife.
"My biggest thing, honestly, is to get her death certificate changed to married," she said. "That will be my victory."
STATE
Officials bust local dog-fighting ring
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Federal authorities in Kansas said Monday that they broke up a dogfighting operation that included training pit bulls to fight in Kansas, Missouri and Texas by chaining the dogs to treadmills for hours at a time and using live chickens as bait.
Pete Davis Jr. and Melvin L. Robinson were charged in a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Kansas with one count of transporting animals for participation in an animal fighting venture in interstate commerce, according to a federal complaint unsealed Monday. The charge carries up to five years in federal prison and a possible fine of up to $250,000.
The criminal complaint and other online court records did not list lawyers or hometowns for either defendant. Attempts to reach Davis and Robinson at phone listings under their names in Kansas were not successful Monday.
Jim Cross, spokesman for Kansas' U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom, declined to comment on the case Monday. Grissom has a news conference scheduled for later Monday about a "significant criminal investigation" that involves the FBI and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Cross would not say if the charges against Davis and Robinson were the subject of that news conference.
The ASPCA, which said it removed nearly 100 dogs involved in the investigation, also helped law enforcement with a major dogfighting investigation in 2009 that led to charges against about two dozen people and the rescue of more than 400 dogs in Missouri, Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Mississippi.
Tim Rickey, vice president of the ASPCA, said dogfighting remains a major problem.
"The situation has not changed," he said Monday. "We do not feel like there has been any decline in animal fights.
There is better awareness, but there continues to be a lack of enforcement because they're very difficult to investigate."
Dogfighting, a federal felony, has come under renewed scrutiny since NFL star Michael Vick was convicted and served prison time for running a dogfighting ring. The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback has been working with the Humane Society of the United States to stop organized animal fighting.
In the complaint unsealed Monday in Kansas, an FBI special agent said two sources approached a Missouri law enforcement officer and the FBI about Davis "and his dog fighting ring." According to the complaint, Davis and Robinson owned the dogs, most of which were pit bulls, and trained them for weekly dogfights in Harrison County, Mo., and fights in April in the Kansas City area and Dallas.
Robinson used a home in Kansas City, Kan., as a training site for the dogs, who were chained to treadmills for "several hours at a time," the complaint said one of the sources told the FBI. The dogs also had weights on "to strengthen it," and "caged live chickens were placed in front of each treadmill as 'bait'," the complaint said.
The complaint told the bodies of three dead dogs were found on the farm the men used in Harrison County — two by one of the FBI informants and one by a Missouri law enforcement officer.
Davis and Robinson discussed betting $20,000 to $30,000 on the dog they were training for the Dallas fight, the complaint said.
The FBI paid one of the sources $1,900 and the other source $100, according to the complaint. One of the sources had no previous convictions, but the other had prior convictions, including for felony theft and transportation of a woman for prostitution.
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