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Merrill sentenced to serve 70 months in prison FBI seized more than 100,000 child porn images from CMU office, home CM Life Staff Reports
Central Michigan University professor William Lord Merrill, 58, was sentenced to 70 months in prison Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Bay City for possession of child pornography, according to court records. Merrill, who taught, among
other courses, classes on Internet censorship at CMU, was arrested for possession of more than 100,000 images of child porn on Dec. 19. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington. He entered a guilty plea in March, admitting to receiving child pornography. In exchange for the guilty plea, federal prosecutors
dropped a second charge of the same crime and another count of child pornography possession. Merrill could have faced as much as 20 years in prison. Instead, he William Merrill will serve just above the
PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFF PAPWORTH/CMLIFE
Central Michigan head football coach Dan Enos addresses the media at the 2013 Mid-American Conference Media Day at Ford Field in Detroit. Enos is in his fourth season as the Chippewas head coach and is looking to build off a successful end to the 2012 season.
Favorite Northern Illinois, Toledo, Ball State picked ahead of Chippewas in preseason poll
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Central Michigan football picked to finish fourth in MAC West 2013 MAC Preseason Poll Breakdown (2012 record) (first-place votes)
MAC East
By Aaron McMann | Staff Reporter ETROIT — Central Michigan football was picked by the media to finish fourth in the Mid-American Conference West Division Tuesday, slightly ahead of the general consensus among preseason publications. The MAC preseason poll was unveiled during the league’s media festivities at Ford Field. The Chippewas earned 67 points, good for fourth place in the West Division. Instate rivals Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan finished fifth and sixth, respectively. The Chippewas received a vote to win the MAC championship game by one MAC beat writer. “We can’t worry about what we see on paper, we just got to play the game,” said senior
safety Avery Cunningham. “We feel like we can do a little better than that, but we just got to wait and see.” Northern Illinois, last year’s league champion and the first MAC school to play in a BCS game, was the clear favorite to win the West and MAC championship game. Toledo and Ball State were also picked ahead of CMU. Media members picked Ohio to win the East, 10 points ahead of Bowling Green — a team some also picked to win the division. “A lot of it is because our league is so tough,” Enos said of CMU’s ranking. “Northern Illinois, for example, brings back the player of the year and their whole offense back. Every year, you have question marks.”
1. Ohio (9-4, 4-4 MAC) (15) 2. Bowling Green (8-5, 6-2 MAC) (8) 3. Kent State (11-3, 8-0 MAC) (1) 4. Buffalo (4-8, 3-5 MAC) (1) 5. Miami (4-8, 3-5 MAC) 6. Akron (1-11, 0-8 MAC) 7. UMass (1-11, 1-7 MAC)
MAC West
1. Northern Illinois (12-2, 8-0 MAC) (16) 2. Toledo (9-4, 6-2 MAC) (5) 3. Ball State (9-4, 6-2 MAC) (3) 4. Central Michigan (7-6. 4-4 MAC) (1) 5. Western Michigan (4-8, 2-6 MAC) 6. Eastern Michigan (2-10, 1-7 MAC)
A MEDIA DAY | 2
Bradford makes name for herself at World University Games By Neil Rosan Staff Reporter
Crystal Bradford came to Central Michigan as the 37th-ranked recruit in the nation. Now, after just two years, the six-foot junior is a Mid-American Conference champion and a World University Games gold medalist. “My mom told me she always had a vision for me, and sometimes I don’t see it for myself,” Bradford said. “If someone told me all this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have doubted them, but then again, I don’t know.” The last six months of Bradford’s life have brought her plenty of success. She played a key role in winning the first MAC title for the women’s basketball team since 1986, was the first Chippewa to receive a first-team All-MAC team selection since 1993 and was selected have a chance to play for her country. “I just felt that getting picked was an honor, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger for me,” she said. “It started out with winning the MAC championship. I thought it was huge, and it was the biggest thing. Then I got to make it to tryouts for the USA team, and I thought that
was the biggest thing.” When tryouts started for Team USA, Bradford was skeptical if she was going to be able to make the final cut. There were 32 of the best players from around the nation and only 12 spots. “I told my pop Dwayne Scott that if there were 14 spots I would make it for sure, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it with 12 spots,” she said. “Everybody was talented. Everyone was so good I had to think about how to separate myself from the rest. I realized I was more athletic, but I was still a guard and I could do things the post could do as well. I could assist, I could rebound and I could score.” Eventually, Bradford stood out and was selected as one of seven guards on the team. “When they said my name, I blacked out,” she said. “I don’t remember what was going on until I got back. I just started to think about all the people I knew I was making proud.” Once at the games, Bradford continued to make a name for herself. She averaged 11 points and six rebounds per game. She was efficient with her time and shot 61 percent from the floor. Her performance reached its
minimum sentence of 60 months. He resigned from CMU in November after being suspended by the university. According to court documents, Merrill knowingly received child pornography on or about July 26, 2003. The FBI seized Merrill’s hard drive from his CMU office, in addition to the hard drive that contained child pornography. Additionally, the U.S. attorney agreed Merrill assisted the authorities in his prosecution by
peak in the semi-final game against Australia when she hit a shot off her own rebound with 14 seconds left in the game. “I was just standing like I was told to do, then something snapped and I had to go get it. There wasn’t anyone else open and Kaleena MosquedaLewis set a dominate screen for me to get open, so I attacked the basket,” she said. “I did a side step, I went with my left and came back on my right and the girl was still on my left side. I thought, ‘Wow, I am so open.’ I missed it and I was ‘Oh, shoot!’ I put it back up and I knew it was going to go in. Once it went in, I was just excited and I started to think about all the people I was making happy.” One of the people she made proud was her mom, Faye Bradford, who watched the game from home. “I’m just very proud of her and grateful for the way things are going for her,” she said. A BRADFORD | 2
notifying authorities in a timely manner that he intended to plead guilty. When a warrant was issued on Nov. 5 to search Merrill’s Mount Pleasant home and office at CMU, items seized and disposed of included all computers, laptops, iPads, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, phones, media storage drives, knives, handcuffs, USB flashdrives, iPods and prescription pills, according to court documents. A MERRILL | 2
Senate to vote on student loan plan this week By Adrian Hedden Staff Reporter and John Irwin Editor-in-Chief
The U.S. Senate is set to vote this week on a compromise on student loan interest rates that would lower rates for students who just recently saw them double. The plan, reached nearly three weeks after lawmakers failed to reach a deal preventing loan rates from subsidized loan rates from doubling to 6.8 percent, would tie interest rates to the U.S. Treasury’s 10-year borrowing rate. A vote is expected on the floor at some point this week, and leaders in both parties say they back the measure, including President Barack Obama. However, Obama might have a tough time winning over his party’s more liberal members who see the compromise as too much of a giveaway to House Republicans, who passed a similar measure weeks ago. “At a time when Democrats control the White House and the U.S. Senate, we should not support bad legislation almost identical to that passed by a very conservative, Republican-led House,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of the plan’s most vocal critics, said in a statement. This proposal would see undergraduates charged an interest rate on their loans of just 3.86 percent this fall on both subsidized and unsubsidized loans, which sat at 6.8 percent before subsidized loans did. A STUDENT LOANS | 2
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT BARCLAY/ UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
CMU junior guard Crystal Bradford, left, poses for a portrait with her mother, Faye.