Twenty-seven-year-old Keyontyli Goffney, of Arlington, N.J., pleaded guilty to burglary and criminal conspiracy Thursday. He was sentenced to time served.

Goffney’s twin brother, Taleon, pleaded guilty to the same crimes in July, but he was sentenced to at least three years in prison because of previous arrests. Police say he once swam across a lake while handcuffed to evade officers.

The twins were arrested in February 2008 after police said they saw them breaking into a beauty shop.

The brothers appeared in such gay porn flicks as “Marc and the Twins.” Keyontyli Goffney says he still works as a model.

1. When I’m out drinking, some men share their family dramas.

2. When I’m out drinking,  I wish some men would stop sharing their family dramas….unless they are cute.

3. RIP Frank McCourt.

4. You know marriage rights foes are losing the debate when they go bat-doo crazy over a small market paper printing a gay marriage announcement.

5. Anyone see the new Potter film?

6. Why didn’t I get to do the Stevie Nicks interview?

7. Does Governor Mark Sanford know when to keep his trap shut?

8. There is something priceless about a porn star going to jail for breaking into a beauty salon. Hopefully someone will turn that wackiness into a porn flick!

9. I  want to say something snarky about my day job, but in this economy it’s bad form to make the bosses upset. I love my job and everything about it. Everything.

10. Keep Army Private Bowe R. Bergdahl and his family in your thoughts.

The statue was created as a tribute to lesbian health activist and attorney Mary York. The statue was a replica of the Bird Girl sculpture that appeared on the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. York’s ashes were mixed into the cement that anchored the statue.

The statue was a part of a garden tribute created last year next to the Howard Brown Health Center honoring York and fellow lesbian health activist Lisa Tonna. A larger and heavier Buddha-like statue was created in honor of Tonna. Both women passed away within two weeks of each other in January 2008.

Center staffers noticed that the statue was missing on Monday, though the statue honoring Tonna remained.

Several clues indicate foul play, including an open front window and a side window leading to the basement that appeared to have been forced open. The neighbors investigated the apartment to find the source of an “odor that grew so strong that people living next door lit scented candles.”

The slayings occurred just days before the couple had plans of moving out and after they had gotten into an argument with a stripper they had taken in and later evicted.

“They were just planning on moving, they said they didn’t want to be in Baltimore,” said property manager Miki Scholtes. “They told us they were going to be out of that place by the end of this week.”

A prison official said the performer was being let go early for good behavior.  He still will have to wear an ankle bracelet for the duration of his sentence and obey a curfew.

Prison appears to have been good for the singer, whose real name is George O’Dowd.  When he left Edmunds Hill Prison in Suffolk on Monday he was noticeably thinn er and had a neatly trimmed beard which he grown while behind bars.

The 47 year old was sentenced in January. During the trial the court was told that O’Dowd met 29-year-old rent boy Audun Carlsen on a gay internet site and agreed to meet at the singer’s home where Carlsen was to pose for a naked photo shoot.

The two men later exchanged emails and at one point O’Dowd accused Carlsen of hacking into his computer and stealing the photos. Nevertheless, O’Dowd invited Carlsen to another photo shoot at his home.

It was a plot to exact revenge, the prosecution said, for what O’Dowd believed was theft of the original pictures.

After O’Dowd had taken several photos of Carlsen, the performer invited the younger man into his bedroom.

When Carlsen entered the room he realized a second man had joined O’Dowd. O’Dowd has refused to name the other man.

Carlsen was forced to the floor.

“Mr O’Dowd produced a set of handcuffs. They placed one end on Mr Carlsen’s right wrist and the other end was placed through a hook that was screwed to a fixture near the bed,” prosecutor Heather Norton told the court during the trial.

She said that Carlsen, “was frightened, shaking and crying. His fear increased when Mr O’Dowd returned into the room carrying with him a box.”

The box, said Norton, contained chains and leather straps.

Carlsen managed to free himself by pulling a hook the handcuffs were attached to from the wall.  He escaped through a window clad in only his underwear and called police from a local news vendor’s stand.

O’Dowd did not testify on his own behalf, but the court. In a transcript of a police interrogation O’Dowd admitted he handcuffed Carlsen but denied punching or assaulting the hustler.

The performer’s attorney suggested that bruises Carlsen had could have been due to the fact that he was HIV positive.

It was the latest brush O’Dowd has had with the law.

In 2006, a judge in New York City sentenced him to five days of community service after being convicted of filing a false police report.

The singer had called police in October 2005 with a bogus report of a burglary by a male prostitute at his lower Manhattan apartment. When police went to investigate they found cocaine inside.

He was originally charged with drug offenses but under an agreement with prosecutors he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges and worked off his sentence picking garbage.

Patrick Zela, 35, was arrested by police in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, where he had been living since last November, and returned this week to Hamilton, where the crime allegedly occurred.

Police said Zela has HIV and did not tell the alleged victim, a man, of his status – a crime that carries an aggravated assault charge.

Det. Duncan McCulloch says police are concerned because Zela has lived in different communities in two provinces over the last two years.

McCulloch says Zela was living in Toronto in 2007 and moved last year to near Campbellville, Ont., before heading to Nova Scotia in November.

Although Hamilton police won’t confirm that Zela used the Internet to meet other men, they say he has gone by the names Dharma, Organic Farmer Guy and Farmer Guy.

Investigators are asking anyone who may have had sexual contact with Zela after 2003 to see a doctor and to contact police.

The four are charged with the December 13 crime of beating, raping, kidnapping, and robbing a 28 year old female  victim. The 45 minute attack began after the victim got out of her car and  the assailants saw a rainbow sticker on the vehicle. As reported by the police, the suspects made comments about her sexuality. The attack is also being investigated as a hate crime.

Tips from local residents led to the arrests of the suspects.

The legislation, which must first be approved by Burundi’s senate, is part of a sweeping reform of the country’s legal system that for the first time abolishes the death penalty and creates laws on genocide. 

The new law also protect women and children from all forms of violence – especially sexual violence.

Burundi is struggling to emerge from a civil war that has resulted in more than 300,000 deaths since 1993. The provisions on genocide and the abolition of the death penalty are considered part of the healing process, but increasingly, hardliners have blamed many of the country’s problems on gays.

A negotiated peace settlement, brokered with the assistance of a number of African states, has led to the installation of a multi-party government.

The bill has the backing of President Pierre Nkurunziza. While almost all lawmakers in the lower house approved the legislation a number opposed the criminalization of homosexuality.

MP Catherine Mabobori said the provision tarnished the high ideals of the other parts of the bill.

“Unfortunately, this penal law is also a regression because it now makes homosexuality a criminal offense, whereas it had been tolerated until now,” said Mabobori who abstained during the vote.

Under the legislation, anyone convicted of homosexuality would be sentenced to a two-year term in prison.

“Imprisoning people simply because of who they love offends every principle of human rights practice, which is to ensure dignity and respect for all people,” said Paula Ettelbrick, the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission .

“This is less about sexuality and more about the visibility of a growing community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Africa refusing to be treated as dirt. These laws are meant to silence and terrorize our community and must be stopped,” Ettelbrick said in a statement.

Two-thirds of African nations maintain criminal penalties for consensual same-sex behavior. In recent years, several countries, including Nigeria and Uganda, have threatened to strengthen laws against homosexuality.

A new criminal code in Zimbabwe broadens the definition of sodomy to include “any act that involves physical contact… that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act.”

The United Nations has condemned laws that criminalize homosexuality as being violations of the rights to privacy and equality and has called upon member states that maintain such laws to review them. Members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights have condemned physical attacks on and the imprisonment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Health officials fear the trend could undermine gains made in fighting the AIDS pandemic and provoke a surge in cases. Globally, about 33 million people are thought to have HIV and nearly 3 million people are newly infected every year.

“If the law is applied badly, this could set us back and do incredible damage,” said Paul de Lay, an AIDS expert at UNAIDS, who was not involved in the report.

De Lay said the laws could result in forced testing and drive the epidemic underground as people hide their HIV status, allowing the virus to spread unnoticed.

According to Planned Parenthood, 58 countries worldwide have laws that criminalize HIV or use existing laws to prosecute people for transmitting the virus. Another 33 countries are considering similar legislation.

Since 2005, seven countries in West Africa have passed HIV laws. In Benin, simply exposing others to HIV is a crime, even if transmission doesn’t occur. And in Tanzania, intentional transmission of the virus can lead to life imprisonment.

Many of the laws in Africa were passed after a meeting in Chad in 2004 sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s biggest funder of AIDS programs, and attended by U.N. officials.

“The U.N. was definitely remiss to allow this to happen,” said Kevin Osborne, a senior HIV adviser at IPPF and one of the report’s authors.

De Lay said UNAIDS found out about the meeting only after it happened.

But poor countries aren’t the only ones using these laws.

In the U.S., 32 states have laws criminalizing HIV transmission. Experts estimate that thousands of people have been charged across the country with spreading HIV.

Since 2001, 16 people in the United Kingdom have been prosecuted for spreading HIV.

In 2005, a woman in Canada was charged with criminal negligence and aggravated assault for passing HIV while pregnant to her baby.

She did not tell her doctors that she had HIV and did not receive the medications necessary to prevent the virus from infecting her child. She was sentenced to a six-month conditional sentence followed by three years of probation.

In countries like Britain, Canada and the U.S., which are major donors of efforts to fight AIDS in Africa, such cases are particularly unfortunate, many experts say.

“It sets a poor example in the sense that other countries may then think this is an appropriate or desirable way to deal with HIV,” said Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

While there might be exceptional cases where prosecuting people who are maliciously spreading HIV makes sense, experts said those were extreme cases.

“The criminal law is a blunt instrument,” Osborne said. “If you put everyone in prison with HIV, then you think you’ve controlled it. But you haven’t dealt with the issues around the intimate behaviors that spread HIV.”

The woman was charged and tried under her birth name – Jimmy Maurice Lewis II – of robbing the Alabama Credit Union in Huntsville. Police said that Lewis intended to use the money from the robberies to finance her sex reassignment surgery.

Witnesses said a woman handed a teller at the Alabama Credit Union branch a note demanding $20,000 in $100 bills.  In it, she warned the teller not to make any sudden moves, leading people in the bank to believe she was armed.

Surveillance cameras showed the robber to be a woman, but police matched the images to an Alabama driver’s license in the name of Jimmy Lewis. The photo on the license showed Lewis as a male.

Lewis was arrested in January at Los Angeles International Airport when she stepped off a flight from Mexico.

Lewis pleaded not guilty but declined to testify in her own defense. The jury deliberated just over a half hour before returning a guilty verdict and Lewis will be sentenced Dec. 11.

But that may not be the end of her troubles. She awaits trial for other bank robberies in Texas and Tennessee.

Following her arrest for the Huntsville heist police in Texas and Tennessee filed charges for similar robberies.