c. 2008 Religion News Service

Jury convicts man who says God told him to kill

(RNS) A New Jersey man who claimed God dispatched him to “close the gates of hell” was convicted Tuesday (Sept. 2) of killing and dismembering his grandmother and ex-girlfriend.

In finding Rosario “Russell” Miraglia, 36, guilty of two counts of murder and weapons offenses, the jury of seven women and five men rejected a defense claim that Miraglia was on a religious mission when he killed the women on June 8, 2004.

Miraglia, who struggles with a heroin addiction, has insisted he is not insane. He testified he received a message from God to kill his grandmother, Julia Miraglia, 88, and his former girlfriend, Leigh Martinez, 31, in Julia Miraglia’s home in Ocean Township, N.J.

Throughout his nearly month-long trial, his attorney, assistant public defender Joseph Krakora, contended that Miraglia was too sick to recognize his own mental illness. He asked jurors to find Miraglia not guilty by reason of insanity.

Executive Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Richard Incremona claimed Miraglia killed the women and fabricated the religious motive because they had basically cut him out of their lives. He noted a videotaped confession in which Miraglia said he killed his grandmother when she threatened to call police after finding Martinez’s dismembered body in an upstairs bedroom.

Miraglia sneaked into his grandmother’s house and repeatedly stabbed Martinez, the mother of his young son, before chopping off her head, hands and feet. Stopping his grandmother from leaving the house, Miraglia chopped her head off while she was still alive, authorities said.

“This was a challenging case because of a vigorous defense that was put forth regarding the defendant’s state of mind,” said Luis Valentin, the Monmouth County prosecutor. “We were able to challenge that and persuasively argue that the defendant knew what he was doing when he performed these heinous acts on the two victims.”

Miraglia initially faced the death penalty, but when capital punishment was abolished in New Jersey in December, he became eligible for life in prison without parole. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 24.

_ Maryann Spoto

Palin’s former minister comes under scrutiny

(RNS) The Rev. Ed Kalnins had no way of knowing he’d be a controversial figure in the 2008 presidential race when he became pastor of a small Pentecostal church in Alaska nine years ago.

But Kalnins has begun to gain attention after The Huffington Post political Web site reported Tuesday (Sept. 2) that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee, may have drawn her religious convictions from Kalnins’ Pentecostal church.

Kalnins has preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted into heaven; and preached that the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq were part of a world war over Christianity, The Huffington Post reported after reviewing recorded sermons by Kalnins.

A statement on the Web site of Kalnins’ church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, indicates that Palin attended that church from the time she was a teenager, but adds that she and her family haven’t been members of the congregation since 2002.

Even so, Kalnins said, Palin has maintained a friendship with his church and attended various conferences and special meetings there _ most recently in June, when the governor spoke at a ministry graduation service.

“Whether I influenced Sarah, I don’t know,” Kalnins said, adding that Palin seeks God on her own.

“She and her family were a part of our church until 2002,” he said. “From 2002, she went to another church … called Wasilla Bible.”

He said he doesn’t know why the Palin family made that change and said it’s easy for the press to distort views expressed in a religious sermon if they are taken out of context.

“You can take any kind of a sermon … without an introduction and without a conclusion and say that this guy is weird.”

Peter Feldman, a spokesman for the McCain-Palin ticket, said he didn’t have any information he could provide about Palin’s ties to, or history with, the Wasilla Assembly of God Church.

Instead, he said that Palin was baptized as an infant in the Catholic Church, was a member of a Christian athletes fellowship in high school and, during the last seven years, she and her family have attended a nondenominational evangelical church in Wasilla.

_ Robert Stern

Complaint filed against company over anti-Muslim graffiti

(RNS) Mohamed Elharragui felt a mixture of anger and fear when he saw the graffiti on the men’s room wall at the warehouse in North Middleton Township, Pa., where he worked.

In a photo he said he took with his cell phone that morning at the Crown Bolt warehouse, the scrawled words are green against a beige wall: “Kill the Mexicans, kill the Iraqs, kill the Muslums (sic).”

The next day, profane threats ranted not only against Muslims but also against Allah, the Arabic word for God, Elharragui said.

A manager expressed dismay and had the graffiti effaced, but there was no “big meeting to talk to the people,” Elharragui said.

Three weeks ago, he and 17 other workers _ mostly African immigrants and Muslims _ walked out of a workplace they said was biased.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission said it has filed a complaint against Crown Bolt on behalf of the workers. The complaint alleges that they were harassed and denied benefits on the basis of ancestry and religion, and that their religious practice was not reasonably accommodated, spokeswoman Shannon Powers said. She provided no details.

Asked about the graffiti, Crown Bolt assistant manager George Fields said, “We covered it up right away.” He then referred other questions to his human resources manager.

A call to that office was returned by Erica Crosling, a spokeswoman for HD Supply in Atlanta, Crown Bolt’s parent company. She would not discuss an “internal personnel matter,” but said, “We do take very seriously any action that does not support our culture of diversity and inclusion.”

The 18 Crown Bolt workers _ many of them immigrants from war-torn Somalia and Sudan _ contacted the local chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Somali Community of Central Pennsylvania, which took the case to the commission.

All but eight of the workers have returned to Crown Bolt, apparently in response to management apologies, said Madina Hasson of the Somali group.

_ Mary Warner

Quote of the Day: John C. Stein, former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska

(RNS) “Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, `Whoa.’ But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing.”

_ John C. Stein, former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who was defeated by Sarah Palin (now Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee) in 1996. He was quoted by The New York Times.

KRE/RB END RNS