Former Browns, Ravens owner Art Modell dies

Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell is seen with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Ravens beat the New York Giants 34-7 in Super Bowl XXXV in this Jan. 28, 2001 file photo taken in Tampa, Fla. Modell died in the early morning hours of Thursday, September 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

  Eyewitness NewsBALTIMORE -- One of the most influential owners in the history of the NFL, Art Modell helped mold the foundation of the league.

The innovative Modell, whose reputation was forever tainted when he moved his franchise from Cleveland to Baltimore, died early Thursday. He was 87.

David Modell said he and his brother, John, were at their father's side when he "died peacefully of natural causes."

"'Poppy' was a special man who was loved by his sons, his daughter-in-law Michel, and his six grandchildren," David Modell said. "Moreover, he was adored by the entire Baltimore community for his kindness and generosity. And, he loved Baltimore."

Modell was among the most important figures in the NFL as owner of the Cleveland Browns, who became the Ravens after he took the team to Baltimore in 1996 - a move that hounded him the rest of his life.

The Ravens won their lone Super Bowl in January 2001, less than a year after Modell sold a minority interest of the team to Steve Bisciotti. In April 2004, Bisciotti completed purchase of the franchise but left Modell a 1 percent share.

During his four decades as an NFL owner, Modell helped negotiate the league's lucrative contracts with television networks, served as president of the NFL from 1967 to 1969, and chaired the negotiations for the first the collective bargaining agreement with the players in 1968.

He also was the driving force behind the 1970 contract between the NFL and ABC to televise games on Monday night.

At one time one of Cleveland's biggest civic leaders, Modell became a pariah in Ohio after he moved the team.

"I have a great legacy, tarnished somewhat by the move," he said in 1999. "The politicians and the bureaucrats saw fit to cover their own rear ends by blaming it on me."

The move was also believed to be the main reason why Modell never made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was one of 15 finalists in 2001 and a semifinalist seven times between 2004 and 2011.

"I believe Art belongs in the Hall of Fame," former New York Giants owner Wellington Mara, now deceased, said in 2002. "I don't think I know a person who has done more for the league than Modell, especially through television."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell posted on Twitter: "Art Modell's leadership was an important part of the NFL's success during the league's explosive growth during the 1960s and beyond ... Art was a visionary who understood the critical role that mass viewing of NFL games on broadcast television could play in growing the NFL."

Goodell also appreciated Modell's sharp wit.

"Art's skills as an owner and league contributor were matched only by his great sense of humor," he tweeted. "Any conversation with Art included laughs."

Modell's Browns were among the best teams of the 1960s, led during his first few years as owner by legendary running back Jim Brown. Cleveland won the NFL championship in 1964 - Modell's only title with the Browns - and played in the title game in 1965, 1968 and 1969.

Modell said he lost millions of dollars operating the Browns in Cleveland and cited the state of Maryland's financial package, including construction of a $200 million stadium, as his reasons for going to Baltimore. The Ravens replaced the Baltimore Colts, who moved to Indianapolis in 1984.

"This has been a very, very tough road for my family and me," Modell said at the time of the move. "I leave my heart and part of my soul in Cleveland. But frankly, it came down to a simple proposition: I had no choice."

Ironically, the cost of the move to Baltimore left him financially strapped and left him no choice but to put in motion the chain of events that enabled Bisciotti to assume majority ownership of the franchise.

Bisciotti has since poured millions into the team, financing construction of a lavish practice facility in Owings Mills, Md. As a tribute to Modell, Bisciotti insisted that a huge oil painting of Modell be hung above the fireplace at the entrance to the complex.

Modell wasn't the kind of owner who operated his team from an office. He mingled with the players and often watched every minute of practice.

"Art talked with me every day when I played in Baltimore," former Ravens tight end Shannon Sharpe said. "He knew everything about what was going on in my life. He showed real concern. But, it wasn't just me. He knew the practice squad players' names. He treated them the same. He was out at practice when it was 100 degrees and when the December snows came. I loved playing for him."

Born June 23, 1925, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Arthur B. Modell dropped out of high school at age 15 and worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard cleaning out the hulls of ships to help out his financially strapped family after the death of his father.

He completed high school in night class, joined the Air Force in 1943, and then enrolled in a television school after World War II. He used that education to produce one of the first regular daytime television programs before moving into the advertising business in 1954.

A group of friends led by Modell purchased the Browns in 1961 for $4 million - a figure he called "totally excessive."

"You get few chances like this," he said at the time. "To take advantage of the opportunity, you must have money and friends with more."

Aside from his work with the Browns, Modell became a leader in the Cleveland community. He served on the board of directors of a number of large companies, including the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., the Higbee Co. and the 20th Century-Fox Film Corp.

Modell and his wife, Patricia, continued their charitable ways in Baltimore, donating millions of dollars to The Seed School of Maryland, a boarding school in Maryland for disadvantaged youths; Johns Hopkins Hospital; and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. The couple also gave $3.5 million to the Lyric, which was renamed the Patricia & Art Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric.

Patricia, his wife of 42 years, passed away in 2011.

Modell was beloved in Baltimore, and hoped one day the people of Cleveland would remember him for what he accomplished in the city. Long after the move, Modell pointed out that Cleveland ultimately got the new stadium he coveted, and that the expansion version of the Browns could draw on the history he helped create.

"I think that part of my legacy is I left the colors, the name and the records in Cleveland," Modell said. "The fans in Cleveland were loyal and supportive. They lived and died with me every Sunday for 35 years."

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Former top football prospect exonerated in rape

  LINDA DEUTSCHLONG BEACH, California -- First he cried. Then Brian Banks - exonerated of a rape conviction that cost him five years in prison - walked outside the courthouse and seized the moment of freedom he had dreamed of for so long.

"This is the first step in reinventing my life," he said after a judge issued his ruling Thursday, promising to pursue the interrupted dream of playing pro football.

It was the plan he left outside a prison door when he pleaded no contest to a childhood friend's false accusation of rape in 2002, a claim she has now recanted.

The hearing that changed Banks' life took only minutes. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Brentford Ferreira said his office conceded the case should be dismissed. Superior Court Judge Mark C. Kim concurred and quickly announced it was over.

One of his first moves was to report to the probation office to have the electronic monitoring ankle bracelet removed - a felon no longer.

At 26, Banks said he is ready to move forward and is trying not to be angry.

"I couldn't ask for more today," he told reporters. "But there is always the question of why did it have to happen in the first place? Why wasn't I heard with the truth of what happened when I was 16?"

Even after he was released from prison, he could not get work because he was a registered sex offender and had a felony record.

Before the charges, Banks was a star middle linebacker at Long Beach Polytechnic High School and was attracting interest from college football powerhouses as the University of Southern California, Ohio State University and the University of Michigan, according to the website Rivals.com, which tracks the recruiting of high school football and basketball players.

He verbally agreed to a full scholarship at USC.

Then, a teenage girl he had known since childhood claimed he had raped her. He was arrested and, on advice of counsel, pleaded no contest to rape and an enhancement of kidnapping in order to avoid a possible life sentence if tried by a jury.

His story is a triumph for the California Innocence Project, which took up his case and illustrates the growing trend toward taking a new look at convictions. But Justin Brooks, head of the program at California Western University in San Diego, said this was the first case he had championed for someone already out of prison. He felt it was not too late to right a wrong for Banks and turn his life around.

The key, said Brooks, was the woman's admission she had lied. And it came out of the blue.

After serving five years and two months in prison, Banks was released, and a strange thing happened. Wanetta Gibson, the woman who claimed he had attacked her on the high school campus when she was 15, contacted him on Facebook and asked to meet with him.

He recalled being stunned. "I thought maybe it wasn't real. How could she be contacting me?"

He said he knew that if he became angry when he met with her it wouldn't help, so he struggled to keep calm.

"I stopped what I was doing and got down on my knees and prayed to God to help me play my cards right," he said.

In two meetings, she said she had lied and offered to help him clear his name, but there was a catch. She did not want to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against the Long Beach schools.

She refused to repeat her new story to prosecutors but they accepted the account which had been secretly videotaped by the defense.

It was uncertain whether Gibson will have to return the money and unlikely she would be prosecuted for making the false accusation so long ago.

Gibson did not attend the hearing and she could not be reached for comment. Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they were unable to find her recently.

At the press conferences that followed the court hearing, Brooks appealed to NFL teams to give Banks a chance. He said Banks has been training six days a week to get in shape for the career he wants.

"He has the speed and the strength. He certainly has the heart," Brooks said. "I hope he gets the attention of people in the sports world."

Gil Brandt, an NFL draft consultant, said Banks would be eligible to sign with any team that might show interest. However, his years away from the game will be hard to overcome.

"History tells us guys who come back after one or two years away when they go into the service find it awfully hard," Brandt said. "And this has been much longer a time."

Brandt compared the challenge to someone who has been out of high school for years trying to get an A in their first class in college.

Banks said he is ready for the challenge.

"It's been a struggle. But I'm unbroken and I'm still here today," the tall, muscular Banks said, tears flowing down his face.

Outside court, Banks donned a sweat shirt that read "Innocent."

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AP Writer Greg Risling and AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner contributed to this story.

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Former Romney classmate describes bullying

Mitt Romney's 1965 high school yearbook photo from the Cranbrook School. Image Credit: Seth Poppel/Yearbook Library

A high school classmate of presidential candidate Mitt Romney told ABC News today that he considers a particular prank the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery” and that he witnessed Romney hold the scissors to cut the hair of a student who was being physically pinned to the ground by several others.

“It’s a haunting memory.  I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it …  because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it.  And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post.  Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job … clumps of hair taken off.”

Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”

Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in  those days … but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things.”

Christine Lauber, older sister of John Lauber, who died in 2004, told ABC News she had ”no knowledge” of the incident involving her brother and Romney. But she said she was at college at the time of the incident, so at the time the brother and sister were “doing our own thing.”

“Even if it did happen, John probably wouldn’t have said anything,” she said.

“If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she added with tears in her eyes. ”It’s two 16-year-old kids at school. And it was 40 years ago!”

Romney has since apologized for what he said were “pranks” in high school but has said he doesn’t remember this specific event.  He added that “homosexuality was the furthest thing from his mind” when it came to the jokes he played on classmates.  He laughed off the 45-year-old anecdotes during the radio interview today.

Asked if he has any doubt that what Romney did could be considered bullying, Maxwell responded, “Oh my god, are you kidding? …  I castigated myself regularly for not having intervened.  I would have felt a lot better about myself had I said, ‘Hey, enough.’”

“When I saw the look on his [Lauber's] face,  it was a look I’ll never forget,” said Maxwell. “When you see a victim, the sense of trust betrayed in this boy who was perfectly innocent for being different.”

“This was bullying supreme,” he said.

Maxwell told ABC News that he is a registered independent, generally votes for Democrats, but has voted Republican in the past. He said he would have voted for Romney’s father, George Romney, had he won the presidential nomination. He says he has not donated to President Obama, nor has he volunteered for him.

Maxwell said he believes the incident had to have some effect on Romney.

“I grew up with him.  We were best friends in elementary school.  We always remained friends.  Mitt is wonderful, very bright, an enormously energetic human being … a friend all my life, but this was a side of him that I hadn’t seen,” said Maxwell.

Maxwell added that he believes this is relevant in a presidential campaign because it speaks to the “character” of Romney.

In response to the Post story, the Romney campaign today released statements of two other students who attended Cranbrook with Romney.

“Mitt was a thoughtful guy with a great sense of humor who cared about his classmates.  He had a good perspective on how to balance all the pressures high school students face. He would never go out and do anything mean spirited. Clownish, yes.  Never mean,” said Richard Moon, a classmate of Romney’s.

“Mitt never had a malicious bone in his body – trying to imply or characterize him as a bully is absurd.” said John French, another Cranbrook classmate.

ABC News’ Matt Jaffe contributed to this report.

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Former Edwards aide retaking stand at boss's trial

  MICHAEL BIESECKERGREENSBORO, N.C. -- A former aide, body man and scheduler for John Edwards who was with the former presidential candidate when he met one of his wealthy donors is taking the stand for a second day at Edwards' trial over possible campaign finance violations.

Matthew Nelson began his testimony Wednesday, the latest in a series of former aides subpoenaed by prosecutors. Nelson worked in several jobs for Edwards and testified he was present at several key events, including the first time Edwards met Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, the heiress who provided most of the secret payments at issue in the case.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts related to campaign finance violations over nearly $1 million from two supporters used to help hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008.

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Former Miss New Hampshire Arrested

Credit: Manchester Police Department

A former Miss New Hampshire USA title holder was arrested Wednesday for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend, according to police.

An argument between 26-year-old beauty queen Nicole Houde and her boyfriend, 33-year-old Scott Nickerson, turned violent when Houde allegedly began punching, kicking, scratching and biting Nickerson, police said.

Manchester Police Sgt. Todd Boucher said Nickerson accused Houde of having an affair. The two began arguing, and Nickerson took Houde’s cell phone. When he refused to give it back, things got ugly, police said.

Houde, who was crowned Miss New Hampshire USA in 2010, was arrested at work and charged with simple assault.

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Former trailblazer Kodak files for Chapter 11

  By BEN DOBBINROCHESTER -- Is Kodak's moment past?

The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. Then came a stunning reversal of fortune: cutthroat competition from Japanese firms in the 1980s and a seismic shift to the digital technology it pioneered but couldn't capitalize on. Now comes a wistful worry that this icon of American business is edging toward extinction.

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, raising the specter that the 132-year-old trailblazer could become the most storied casualty of a digital age that has whipped up a maelstrom of economic, social and technological change.

Already a shadow of its former self, cash-poor Kodak will now reorganize in bankruptcy court as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. The Rochester, N.Y.-based company is pinning its hopes on peddling a trove of photo patents and morphing into a new-look powerhouse built around printers and ink. Even if it succeeds, it seems unlikely to ever again resemble what its red-on-yellow K logo long stood for - a signature brand synonymous in every corner of the planet with capturing, collecting and sharing images.

"Kodak played a role in pretty much everyone's life in the 20th century because it was the company we entrusted our most treasured possession to - our memories," said Robert Burley, a photography professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Its yellow boxes of film, point-and-shoot Brownie and Instamatic cameras, and those hand-sized prints that made it possible for countless millions to freeze-frame their world "were the products used to remember - and really define - what that entire century looked like," Burley said.

"One of the interesting parts of this bankruptcy story is everyone's saddened by it," he continued. "There's a kind of emotional connection to Kodak for many people. You could find that name inside every American household and, in the last five years, it's disappeared. At the very least, digital technology will transform Kodak from a very big company to a smaller one. I think we all hope it won't mean the end of Kodak because it still has a lot to offer."

Kodak has notched just one profitable year since 2004. At the end of a four-year digital makeover during which it dynamited aged factories, chopped and changed businesses and eliminated tens of thousands more jobs, it closed 2007 on a high note with net income of $676 million.

It soon ran smack into the recession - and its momentum slipped into reverse.

Years of investor worries over whether Kodak might seek protection from its creditors intensified in September when it hired major restructuring law firm Jones Day as an adviser. Its stock, which topped $94 in 1997, skidded below $1 a share for the first time and, by Jan. 6, hit an all-time closing low of 37 cents.

Multiple board members recently resigned, and last week the company announced that it realigned and simplified its business structure in an effort to cut costs, create shareholder value and accelerate its long-drawn-out digital transformation.

The human toll reaches back to the 1980s when Tokyo-based Fuji, an emerging archrival, began to eat into Kodak's fat profits with novel offerings like single-use film cameras. Beset by excessive caution and strategic stumbles, Kodak was finally forced to cut costs. Its long slide had begun.

Mass layoffs came every few years, unraveling a cozy relationship of company and community that was perhaps unequaled in the annals of American business. Kodak has sliced its global payroll to 18,800 from a peak of 145,300 in 1988, and its hometown rolls to 7,100 from 60,400 in 1982.

Veteran employees who dodged the well-worn ax are not alone in fearing what comes next. Some 25,000 Kodak retirees in this medium-sized city on Lake Ontario's southern shore worry that their diminished health coverage could be clawed back further, if not disappear, in bankruptcy court.

It's a long cry from George Eastman's paternalistic heyday.

Founded by Eastman in 1880, Kodak marketed the world's first flexible roll film in 1888 and turned photography into an overnight craze with a $1 Brownie camera in 1900. Innovation and mass production were about to put the world into cars and airplanes, the American Century was unfolding, and Kodak was ready to record it.

"It's one of the few companies that wiggled its way into the fabric of American life and the American family," said Bob Volpe, 69, a 32-year employee who retired in 1998. "As someone at Kodak once said, 'We put chemicals in one end so our customers can get memories out the other."'

Intent on keeping his work force happy - they never organized a union - Eastman helped pioneer profit-sharing and, in 1912, began dispensing a generous wage dividend. Going to work for Kodak - "taking the life sentence," as it was called - became a bountiful rite of passage for generations.

"Most of the people who worked at Kodak had a middle-class life without a college education," Volpe said. "Those jobs paid so well, they could buy a boat, two cars, a summer place, and send their kids to college."

Propelled by Eastman's marketing genius, the "Great Yellow Father" held a virtual monopoly of the U.S. photographic industry by 1927. But long after Eastman was stricken with a degenerative spinal disorder and took his own life in 1932, Kodak retained its mighty perch with a succession of magical innovations.

Foremost was Kodachrome, a slide and motion-picture film extolled for 74 years until its demise in 2009 for its sharpness, archival durability and vibrant hues. In the 1960s, easy-load Instamatic 126 became one of the most popular cameras ever, practically replacing old box cameras. In 1975, engineer Steven Sasson created the first digital camera, a toaster-size prototype capturing black-and-white images at a resolution of 0.1 megapixels.

Through the 1990s, Kodak splurged $4 billion on developing the photo technology inside most cellphones and digital devices. But a reluctance to ease its heavy reliance on film allowed rivals like Canon Inc. and Sony Corp. to rush largely unhindered into the fast-emerging digital arena. The immensely lucrative analog business Kodak worried about undermining too soon was virtually erased in a decade by the filmless photography it invented.

"If you're not willing to cannibalize yourself, others will do it for you," said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester's business school. "Technology is changing ever more rapidly, the world's becoming more globalized, so to stay at the top of your game is getting increasingly harder."

In November, Kodak warned it could run out of cash in a year if it didn't sell 1,100 digital-imaging patents it's been shopping around since July. Analysts estimate they could fetch at least $2 billion.

In the meantime, Kodak has focused its future on new lines of inkjet printers that it says are on the verge of turning a profit.

It expects printers, software and packaging to produce more than twice as much revenue by 2013 and account by then for 25 percent of the company's total revenue, or nearly $2 billion.

CEO Antonio Perez said in a statement Thursday that the bankruptcy filing is "a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak." The company has secured $950 million in financing from Citigroup Inc., and expects to be able to operate its business during bankruptcy reorganization and pay employees.

On its website, Kodak assured customers that the nearly $1 billion in debtor-in-possession financing would be sufficient to pay vendors, suppliers and other business partners in full for goods and services going forward. The bankruptcy filing in the Southern District of New York does not involve Kodak's international operations.

"To be able to hop from stone to stone across the stream takes great agility and foresight and passion for excellence, and Kodak is capable of that. They have some killer stuff in inkjet printing. It's becoming a profitable product line but what they need is the runway to allow it to take off," Zupan said. "As the saying goes, 'the best way to anticipate the future is to invent it."'

The company and its board are being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Dominic DiNapoli, vice chairman of FTI Consulting, will serve as chief restructuring officer. Kodak expects to complete its U.S.-based restructuring during 2013.

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No charges against former Syracuse coach

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Former street preacher gets life in Smart case

FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2006 file photo, Brian David Mitchell, the alleged kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart, enters court for his competency hearing in Salt Lake City. Federal prosecutors are seeking a competency hearing Thursday June 18, 2009 for Mitchell charged in the 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart in Utah following two independent evaluations of whether he is fit to stand trial. (AP Photo / AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

  By JENNIFER DOBNERSALT LAKE CITY -- Elizabeth Smart finally got her chance Wednesday to confront the street preacher convicted of holding her captive and raping her for months when she was just 14. Now 23, she stood tall in the courtroom - stoic, with an even voice and a strength Brian David Mitchell clearly lacked.

Mitchell, frail and skinny with a long, peppery white beard, sang hymns softly and closed his hollow eyes, just as he did throughout his trial, just as he would moments later as the judge gave him two life sentences without parole. That did not stop Smart from looking right at him and coolly speaking her piece.

It took her about 30 seconds.

"I don't have very much to say to you. I know exactly what you did," said Smart, wearing a houndstooth checked skirt, an ivory jacket and pearls. "I know that you know that what you did was wrong. You did it with full knowledge ... but I have a wonderful life now and no matter what you do, you will never affect me again.

"You took away nine months of my life that can never be returned. You will have to be held responsible for those actions, whether it's in this life or the next, and I hope you are ready for when that time comes."

Mitchell's sentencing closed a major legal chapter in the heartbreaking ordeal that stalled for years after he was declared mentally ill and unfit to stand trial in state court. A federal jury in December unanimously convicted the 57-year-old of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for sex.

When the judge asked if he had anything to say, Mitchell, whose hands and feet were bound, kept right on singing. His bizarre demeanor changed just once during the hearing: As he was sentenced, he sang louder.

Outside the courthouse, a beaming Smart, now a Brigham Young University music student, told reporters that the sentencing "is the ending of a very long chapter and the beginning of a very beautiful chapter for me." She said she wants to work with other crime victims and lend her support to the cause of missing children.

Smart was snatched from her Salt Lake City bedroom by knifepoint in the early hours of June 5, 2002. The massive search to find the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl riveted the nation, as did her improbable recovery while walking with her captor on a suburban Salt Lake City-area street on March 12, 2003.

At trial, she testified in a steady, clear voice about her "nine months of hell." Mitchell whisked her away to his camp in the foothills near the family home. She was stripped of her favorite red pajamas, draped in white, religious robes and forced into a polygamous marriage with Mitchell. She was tethered to a metal cable strung between two trees and subjected to near-daily rapes while being forced to use alcohol and drugs.

Mitchell, who outlined his religious beliefs in a rambling 27-page manifesto he called "The Book of Immanuel David Isaiah," took Smart to California for five of the months she was held captive. She recalled being forced to live homeless, dress in disguises and stay quiet or lie about her identity if ever approached by strangers or police. She said he threatened her life and the lives of her family every day.

U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said Mitchell deserved a life sentence because the facts of the case were "unusually heinous and degrading."

Carlie Christensen, U.S. attorney for Utah, said the resolution was long overdue for Smart and her family. "It is a measure of justice for Elizabeth and it will certainly ensure Brian David Mitchell will never inflict such intolerable and unspeakable cruelty on anyone else again," Christensen said.

The defense waived its closing remarks before sentencing. Parker Douglas, a member of Mitchell's defense team, said outside the courthouse that the sentence was not unexpected.

"I wish Elizabeth Smart and her family the best. I hope they get to move on," Douglas said. He added that the decision about whether to appeal depends largely on what Mitchell wants.

Though Smart testified at Mitchell's trial, she never addressed him directly then because he was removed from the courtroom each day after singing hymns to disrupt the proceedings. On Wednesday he sang songs including "Come Come Ye Saints" and "O Come O Come Emmanuel."

"Exploitation of religion is not a defense," Smart's father, Ed, said at Mitchell's sentencing, in a statement that was even shorter than his daughter's. "You put Elizabeth through nine months of psychological hell."

The facts of the case have never been in dispute, but defense attorneys have said Mitchell's actions were tainted by mental illness and long-held delusional beliefs that he had been commanded by God to fulfill important prophecies.

Elizabeth Smart, who recently returned from a Mormon church mission in France, described her captor as vulgar and self-serving when she testified at trial. She said she believed he was driven by his desire for sex, drugs and alcohol, not by any sincere religious beliefs.

"Nine months of living with him and seeing him proclaim that he was God's servant and called to do God's work and everything he did to me and my family is something that I know that God would not tell somebody to do," Smart said during the trial.

Mitchell was deemed competent for a federal trial, though a parallel state case - where he remains charged with six felonies - stalled after a judge twice determined he was unfit and rejected a petition for forced treatment. A key witness for federal prosecutors, New York forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, concluded that Mitchell was "malingering" or faking a mental disorder to avoid prosecution.

Defense attorneys maintain Mitchell needs psychiatric attention and asked the judge to recommend incarceration in a federal prison hospital rather than a standard prison.

Wanda Barzee, his estranged wife and co-defendant in the case, is already serving a 15-year sentence in a federal prison hospital in Texas for her role in the kidnapping.

Barzee, 65, pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping and unlawful transportation charges in November 2009. Upon her release, Barzee is expected to be transferred to the Utah State Prison to serve a sentence on a conviction in a companion case involving the attempted abduction in 2002 of Smart's cousin.

Mitchell's ex-wife, Debbie Mitchell, praised the Smart family for their courage.

"There's some closure to it, knowing he'll never molest another child," she said. "We've never heard him say he's sorry. He got caught. We never heard him apologize or say he regretted his actions."

Rebecca Woodridge, Mitchell's former stepdaughter, said she wants to thank Elizabeth Smart and confront her stepfather, who she says abused her for five years when she was a child.

Woodbridge said she talked to Mitchell Tuesday and asked if he had anything to say to the public. He told her that he doesn't think the world is ready to hear what he has to say.

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Associated Press Writer Chi-Chi Zhang contributed to this report.

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Former teammate says Lance Armstrong injected EPO

  By EDDIE PELLSNEW YORK -- Tyler Hamilton joined Floyd Landis on the list of cyclists who once worked for Lance Armstrong but now say the seven-time Tour de France winner used performance-enhancing drugs.

In an interview with "60 Minutes," Hamilton admitted that he doped and said Armstrong did, as well - using the blood booster EPO in the 1999 Tour and before the race in 2000 and 2001. Armstrong's string of seven straight wins lasted from 1999-2005.

"I saw (EPO) in his refrigerator. ... I saw him inject it more than one time, like we all did. Like I did, many, many times," Hamilton said in the "60 Minutes" interview that was aired Thursday on the "CBS Evening News."

He said Armstrong "took what we all took... the majority of the peloton," referring to riders in the race. "There was EPO...testosterone... a blood transfusion."

Armstrong immediately refuted the Hamilton interview, launching a website that denied the claims. He also tweeted: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."

But the Hamilton interview keeps the news of Armstrong and his alleged doping program in the headlines.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that a federal investigation into whether Armstrong and his former U.S. Postal team ran a systematic doping program is pushing into its second year, and that the feds recently asked French authorities for evidence in a request that mentions Armstrong by name.

As it did when Landis made his accusations, Armstrong's camp was quick to undercut the credibility of the accuser.

"Hamilton is actively seeking to make money by writing a book, and now he has completely changed the story he has always told before so that he could get himself on '60 Minutes' and increase his chances with publishers," Armstrong attorney Mark Fabiani said. "But greed and a hunger for publicity cannot change the facts: Lance Armstrong is the most tested athlete in the history of sports: He has passed nearly 500 tests over twenty years of competition."

A report by ESPN said Hamilton sent a letter to friends apologizing for lying about his past drug use. He said he testified six hours before the Los Angeles grand jury investigating Armstrong.

It will be up to the members of the grand jury to decide whether they believe the Hamilton who steadfastly denied doping for years - at times concocting elaborate excuses for his positive tests - or the one who testified under oath about the Armstrong case.

Landis, meanwhile, is an unlikely witness in this case, even though it was his revelations a year ago this week that poured fuel on the investigation.

He was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for taking synthetic testosterone, denied taking performance-enhancing drugs for years, then finally admitted he doped for much of his career - a mea culpa that also implicated Armstrong.

Asked to comment on Hamilton's interview, Landis said in an email to The AP: "The only comment I have is that I wish the best for Tyler."

Hamilton, 40, won a cycling gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games but failed a drug test later. He was allowed to keep his medal, however, because problems at a laboratory meant his backup 'B' sample could not be tested.

Months later, he was caught blood doping and served a two-year ban which ended in 2007.

Hamilton returned to racing and won the 2008 U.S. road championship, but retired last spring after admitting he took an antidepressant that contained the banned steroid DHEA. He was officially banned from cycling for eight years.

The International Olympic Committee could strip Hamilton of his gold medal, IOC vice president Thomas Bach told The Associated Press on Friday.

Bach said the committee will examine Hamilton's statements that he doped throughout his career.

"If there is any need or possibility to take action we will do it," said Bach, who heads most of the IOC's doping investigations.

Bach said he hasn't seen Hamilton's statements yet but "we will look into this."

The IOC can retroactively strip Olympic medals if proof of doping emerges later or an athlete admits to cheating. The IOC took away Marion Jones' five medals from the 2000 Sydney Games after she admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

The "60 Minutes" segment, which will air in its entirety Sunday, also includes an interview with another former Armstrong teammate, Frankie Andreu.

Now one of the race directors at the Tour of California, Andreu told Pelley he took banned substances because lesser riders he believed were doping were passing him.

"Training alone wasn't doing it and I think that's how ... many of the other riders during that era felt, I mean, you kind of didn't have a choice," he is quoted as saying.

Andreu's wife, Betsy, who has said Armstrong discussed taking performance-enhancing drugs as doctors prepared him for cancer treatment in 1996, said she and her husband are working with investigators.

"We are cooperating, and we'll just tell the truth. And telling the truth has been costly," she said. "It's not popular to tell the truth about Lance."

Andreu and Hamilton were both in on the ground floor of Armstrong's record-breaking Tour de France domination, and were among the key cyclists he relied on and lived with as he put his grip on the three-week race.

They both rode with Armstrong for the first two Tours that he won, in 1999 and 2000, all together under U.S. Postal colors.

Hamilton rode with Armstrong on his 2001 Tour win for U.S. Postal, too.

Andreu's Tour links with Armstrong also predate the start of his winning streak. Andreu and Armstrong were teamed together at Motorola for the 1993, '94, '95 and '96 Tours.

In his biography, "It's Not About the Bike," Armstrong described Andreu on that first winning Tour in 1999 as "a big powerful sprinter and our captain, an accomplished veteran who had known me since I was a teenager."

Hamilton was a climber, and one of his jobs was to help haul Armstrong up the Tour's punishing climbs.

But that teamwork is long gone, replaced by a damning accusation.

Also in the interview, Hamilton said Armstrong failed a drug test at the 2001 Tour de Suisse, the same accusation Landis made when he went public with his allegations last year.

--- AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson in Lausanne, Switzerland, contributed to this report.

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