SEATTLE, Washington — A psychiatrist who met with Naveed Haq four times since October 2006 testified at the Seattle trial Tuesday that he suffers from bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Dr. James Missett, an expert hired by the defense, said Haq has been mentally ill for at least a decade and was mentally ill in the time leading up to the shootings at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Haq is charged with killing one woman and wounding five others in a shooting at the Jewish Federation there. He faces life in prison if convicted of murder, kidnapping and malicious harrassment charges, Washington’s hate crime law. Haq is mounting an insanity defense.

Earlier in the day, Naveed Haq’s father said he spent the evening of July 27, 2006, one day before the shootings, with his son. Other than noticing that Naveed did not eat much at dinner, Mian Haq said he did not notice anything unusual about his son’s behavior or speech. He said Naveed “was in a good mood” and appeared to have more energy compared to days earlier when he “seemed really down” and “sluggish.”

Mian Haq also recalled trying to dissuade the defendant both that night and the next morning from going to Seattle. The elder Haq said he told his son he didn’t think it was a good idea because, among other things, every time Naveed would go, something bad would happen. “Either he would get a ticket or something would get stolen.”

Haq said he first learned his son was involved in the shooting at the Jewish Federation after friends told him that police had detained a Pakistani man in his 30s. Subsequently, another friend called to tell him the suspect was named Naveed Afzal Haq. “I thought there is only one Naveed Afzal Haq,” he said.

-In Session staff

ELIZABETH, New Jersey — I am here in Elizabeth, New Jersey for the divorce trial of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey. There’s only one problem…there is no trial.

In Session has learned that settlement talks are continuing, but an announcement scheduled to be made this afternoon by both sides may not be happening.

The big question is whether the McGreeveys are actually resolving issues they have been fought over for several years now. And what about that fraud claim brought by Dina Matos McGreevey? She wants damages, she says, for being fraudently induced into marriage by the former governor.

McGreevey resigned from office in 2004, announcing at a press conference that he was a “gay American.” McGreveey also told the nation at that time he had been having an affair with his male homeland security advisor.

Yesterday, attorneys for both parties issued a joint statement saying, “We are happy to report on behalf of both of our clients that they have made progress toward settling their case.” At the center of many contentious issues has been the custody of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter. In addition to custody and support, Matos McGreevey is asking for $600,000 to compensate her for the life she lost as first lady after her husband resigned.

If talks break down, there may just be that divorce trial…stay tuned to In Session.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK –Jim McGreevey is back in the news. His was not the first sex scandal to bring down a politician and it certainly wasn’t the last. Just in the three years since Governor McGreevey left the statehouse and his wife, we’ve also lost Governor Spitzer here in New York to a sex scandal. Toe-tapper Larry Craig is holding on to his Senate seat for dear life. And don’t forget Detroit’s mayor and prolific sex text messenger, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Ah, the private foibles of middle-aged politicians. Is it weakness? Perversion? Corruption? Or is it just to be expected? I mean, do we really think politicians are having more illicit sex now than they have in the past?

What’s changed? Not the men. Not the sex. But here’s what has: the news media that now prefers to report on sex rather than to utter the real dirty word in politics, “issues.”

Gas prices, the mortgage mess, health care, the war. It’s time we start to focus on what our governors and other elected officials are doing in office. Not on what they’re doing in bed.

And that is the Last Word.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington – The leader of the men’s group at Word of Faith testified Monday at the trial of Naveed Haq. Albert Montelongo said Naveed Haq attended the one thousand-strong non-denominational church in Kennewick, WA for four or five months starting in late 2005. Haq found Christianity to be a loving religion, said Montelongo, and was baptized in the church.

One of the defendant’s treating psychiatrists told jurors the drug lithium is “the cornerstone for treatment of the whole bipolar spectrum.” (The defense, of course, points to the fact that Naveed Haq was taken off this medication as one of the contributing factors to his actions on July 28, 2006.) “If you take the lithium away,” said the doctor, “then things will start to unravel very quickly.”

Haq’s father testified earlier in the day his son made a request the evening before the rampage; “I want to be admitted voluntarily,” Mian Haq said his son told him. “I am going to have a relapse.”

Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others in an attack at the Jewish Federation.

–In Session staff

NEW YORK — Here’s a case you may want to pay attention to. Beginning Tuesday, the divorce battle between former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey and his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey heads to the courtroom. The couple was married for about 4 years with a young daughter when McGreevey came out in a 2004 press conference, saying he was a “gay American.” That breaking news was not the only bombshell. The then-governor admitted to having an affair with one of his male staff members.

A Union County, New Jersey family court judge has basically begged the couple repeatedly to settle the matter out of court without success. So now a very public trial is set to begin. Some of the issues to be litigated are: child custody, financial support and fraud.

Although the first part of the case, concerning child custody and parenting, will be closed, the remainder of the trial will be open to the public for all to hear exactly what went on inside the walls of the New Jersey governor’s mansion.

Matos McGreevey is asking for $600,000 to compensate for the lifestyle she would have led as first lady of New Jersey if her husband had completed his term. Additionally, McGreevey’s wife has filed a claim of fraud, claiming that the former governor married her so he could achieve his political dreams as a straight husband and father.

McGreevey’s lawyers want to call to the stand a man by the name of Ted Pedersen. He is a former driver of the McGreeveys who says he engaged in sexual romps with the couple during their courtship and marriage. Jim McGreevey wants to use this testimony to try and prove his wife knew he was attracted to men even before they married and that she was not defrauded regarding his sexual orientation.

According to a legal brief written by McGreevey’s counsel, the former governor will testify. “Mr. Pedersen’s testimony will be corroborated by the testimony of the plaintiff.” Matos McGreevey denies the trysts ever occurred.

In Session will be on the ground covering this case. We’ll see you in New Jersey.

– Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

SEATTLE, Washington – We got rare glimpses of emotion from the defendant Thursday, as he smiled at his brother’s account of Haq’s ideas for how to appeal to women, and chuckled at a joke by his father – before returning to the distant, despondent appearance Haq has had throughout the trial, sitting perfectly still, and blinking slowly.

Haq’s mother also showed a new side, as the demure woman became angry at Erin Ehlert’s questions, and was allowed to have her say, uninterrupted. “He’s a very compassionate, sensitive person,” said the mother. “I can not believe in my heart that he did the things you are telling me.”

As for Haq’s religious affiliation, several witnesses testified Haq saw the religion of Islam as too restrictive, even making a show of eating in front of his fasting family members during Ramadan. Instead, he turned to a Christian church with a “more welcoming” reception and spontaneous worship. But, those who know Haq suspected this, too, was a fleeting interest for his troubled mind.

“If this is what gives you peace and consolation, fine,” his father told him. “But you have a habit; you start a thing and after a month it will fizzle out.”

– In Session staff 

WASHINGTON — Police in Tarpon Springs, Florida are reporting what may be a tragedy—and a cause for soul-searching in the Justice Department. The police say that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, nicknamed the “D.C. Madam” after she was prosecuted in Washington for running an escort service, has apparently committed suicide. They said her body, and suicide notes, were found in a shed near a mobile home in Tarpon Springs. Read more

Ms. Palfrey was convicted last month in D.C. of racketeering and money laundering in a trial that produced squalid testimony by a string of former “escorts” who said they did, indeed, peddle sex when they worked for Ms. Palfrey.

Under the sentencing guidelines she stood to get a prison sentence of from four to six years at a sentencing hearing later this month. Early in the case Ms. Palfrey projected an almost casual, this-can’t-be-happening-to-me attitude, but she seemed stunned by her conviction. Justice Department prosecutions of escort services are rare, and it was obvious that she had never thought it would come to this.

There is much yet to be learned about this sad affair. But I raised a question in this space on the first day of the trial, and it bears repeating in light of what has happened:

“The most perplexing question is why the prosecutors are pursuing this case. They have given no indication that the “D.C. Madam” case is part of a broader campaign against prostitution by the thriving escort business. No similar cases have been brought. Palfrey’s attorneys claim they are punishing her for giving them a hard time n an unrelated case. The government should not prosecute a citizen for such a reason, and if the prosecutors have a proper reason, they should declare what it is.”

– Fred Graham, In Session senior editor

NEW YORK — Sam Spade, the hard-boiled private dick, in the 1930 novel “The Maltese Falcon” summed it all up: “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

But in modern day Los Angeles it had better be within the law and that’s the question for federal jurors deliberating the fate of celebrity sleuth Anthony Pellicano.

Pellicano is accused of running a criminal organization that included a former police sergeant who allegedly ran illegal police checks on hundreds of people; a former telephone company worker who allegedly set up the illegal wiretaps; a software engineer who developed a program that recorded phone conversations; and a client who allegedly helped translate wiretaps.

If Pellicano is found guilty of racketeering, he could go to prison for the rest of his life.

In closing arguments, prosecutors described Pellicano as a “well-connected, well-paid thug.” During the course of investigations, they said, “tires get slashed, computers get hacked, houses get broken into. And of course, people’s phones get wiretapped.”

Pellicano, who is representing himself, tried to convince jurors there was no enterprise and he acted as a “lone ranger.” He maintained that “his job was problem-solving, through the acquisition of information.” The wiretaps were for his ears only, he said, and that if he’s guilty so is every other detective in the country.

While there was some star testimony during the trial, it hardly cast as a harsh a light as was expected on Hollywood’s heavyweights. Comedian Garry Shandling testified about a “smear campaign” he said Pellicano orchestrated against him while the gumshoe was working for Paramount Pictures executive Brad Grey. Chris Rock testified about hiring Pellicano to investigate a model who demanded money after falsely claiming she was carrying his baby and later accused him of sexual assault.

The probe was triggered in 2002 by claims that Pellicano had tried to intimidate Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch to keep her from pursuing stories about a suspected Mafia extortion plot against actor Steven Seagal. Busch had her car window smashed and an anonymous delivery of a dead fish and a rose.

FBI agents searching Pellicano’s West Hollywood office found computer files containing wiretap notes, as well as plastic explosives, grenades and guns. This led to his guilty plea on felony firearms charges in 2003 and a 2-1/2-year prison term.

It’s only a matter of time before we learn whether Pellicano’s defiance will pay off against what he claims are overzealous prosecutors. Pellicano has always asserted that he would never cooperate with authorities or testify against the numerous high-profile clients who hired him to dig up dirt on their adversaries. In one jail house interview he said, “I’m never going to do that. I am going to be a man until I fall — if, in fact, that happens.”

Would Sam Spade approve?

– Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK — I love my job but there are things I hate about this business. Like when we hype a story for weeks and then just let it drop because the people involved continue to be torn apart by whatever event made them a story in the first place.

As usual, Jami Floyd has the Last Word.

That’s exactly the case in Texas with the polygamy ranch raid last month. We reported that story every day for weeks — all about alleged sexual abuse at the ranch — none of it yet proved, by the way. But, now that the media brouhaha has died down, don’t think the story is over for the children taken from their mothers, because here iw what has been proved and not widely reported:

These children are now on an odyssey through the Texas child welfare system. Children who had never eaten processed foods, had never watched television. And Wal-Mart? They don’t sell those prairie dresses.

Imagine the shock of being flung headlong into potato chips and the likes of Hannah Montana. All of this in the context of a child welfare system that was underfinanced and already failing the children in its care, even before it took on 462 new cases.

What were they thinking? I’m thinking they weren’t.

And that’s the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK — Uma Thurman is starring in a production here today that I’m sure she’d rather not have listed on her credits. She will be the star witness in the trial of a man charged with stalking her for more than a year.

As frightening as the idea of a stalker is, especially to celebrities, the case raises some interesting issues about the boundaries of personal liberties.

The prosecution claims that Jack Jordan became obsessed with Thurman and engaged in a campaign of stalking that included numerous emails sent to the actress’ father, a professor at Columbia University, professing his love for her. It progressed to repeated efforts to contact her directly, including leaving poems and letters at her home and attempting to see her at movie shoot locations.

Sounds pretty scary.

But the defense claims that Jordan is not a deranged and threatening stalker; rather, he is an old-fashioned romantic who has fallen for the beautiful and talented actress and is simply trying, through his poems and letters, to sweep her off her feet. At worst, claims Jordan’s lawyer, he is a man who needs some psychiatric help, but certainly not jail.

We hear celebrities often decrying the loss of their privacy, even though the more thoughtful of that select and entitled breed realize that some loss of privacy represents the wages for their celebrity.

But just how much of that privacy must they give up? And what sort of boundaries should be erected by the law to protect them from the frightening — or the merely over zealous — fans who seek to get up close and personal with the stars?

That’s the question that will be answered, at least for Uma Thurman, in a small courtroom in New York, after her starring role today.

– Jack Ford, In Session anchor