Gary Tuchman and Katherine Wojtecki
AC360°

Nathan Halbach is 22, with a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. He knows that "horrible stuff" lies ahead.

His mother, Pat Bond, has been taking care of him full time. But when she needed help, she reached out to the Roman Catholic Church.

After all, his father is a priest.

Nathan was born in 1986, during a five-year affair between his mother and Father Henry Willenborg, the Franciscan priest who celebrated Nathan's baptism. The Franciscan Order drew up an agreement acknowledging the boy's paternity and agreeing to pay child support in exchange for a pledge of confidentiality.

Now her son - the youngest of four children - may have just weeks to live. And when the Franciscans balked at paying for his care, she decided she was no longer bound by her pledge of confidentiality.

"I never asked for extraordinary amounts. I asked for the basic needs and care of my son," Bond said. But she said the church told her, "No, we are not Nathan's biological father, we have no legal obligation to your son."

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Program Note: Tune in tonight for Randi Kaye's report on this alleged case of stolen valor. AC360° 10 p.m. ET.

AC360°

The Legion of Valor was organized on April 23, 1890, in Washington, DC, by a group of Civil War and Indian War Campaign veterans who were recipients of the Medal of Honor. At its inception, the name was "The Medal of Honor Legion".

Legion of Valor comprises of members who have received either a medal of honor, a distinguished service cross, navy cross or air force cross. And uh of course other top two awards in each of the respective services.

It also condemns instances of stolen valor.

According to Thomas A. Richards, the membership chair of Legion of Valor, "Every time somebody steals valor and is recognized publicly, other people wonder when they see somebody else who who is decorated, who are served honorably, they wonder, “is that person a fraud too?” It chips away at our credibility a little bit at a time, every time that it happens."

Learn more about the Legion of War here.

Debris clutters a road in Pago Pago, American Samoa, after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last month.

Drew Griffin | BIO
CNN Investigative Correspondent

It’s New Orleans all over again. Just 2,600 miles south of Hawaii, so nobody is noticing.

American Samoa IS an American territory, but in some parts, it looked to me like the third world. Children rummaging through broken scraps of what once was a house, a woman making the family meal on an outside counter made from a broken door. A three- year-old, yes just three, walking barefoot through a debris field filled with nails. And where was any sign of government help? Nowhere.

After a devastating tsunami rocked the territory on September 29th, we got a tip by email.

The email told us American Samoa had a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to build a tsunami warning siren system. The system was never built. Thirty-four people died. And it's now the subject of an FBI investigation.

But the trip also uncovered much more: American Samoa’s government has been unresponsive to the needs of its hardest-hit villages. Billions of dollars in U.S. government handouts to this island show little to no signs of doing any good, and despite all the money taxpayers send here, very few federal officials have bothered to find out where it has been spent.

You will see the first of our reports tonight. When you watch, ask yourself what I kept asking: is this really America?

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear Joe Johns' report on lobbying and the financial industry. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Joe Johns and Justine Redman
AC360°

It may be a recession on your street, but good times are rolling along K Street in Washington DC – otherwise known as the home address for lobbyists.

Health care has become one of the most crucial political issues of 2009, and more than $293 million has been spent on health care lobbying so far this year. At this rate, 2009 looks like it will set a new record for lobbying.

The heat is still on, as the future of health care reform rides to a large extent on the power of individual members of congress. Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will introduce a bill including a "public option," when only a few weeks ago, a "public option" was considered as good as dead. These last few days, TV airwaves have been a seeming barrage of politicians and pundits frantically pushing their agendas. Whether it's Reid or other pivotal Senators such as Olympia Snowe, with every move they make, a frantic dance of lobbyists has preceded it.

According to figures published by the Center for Responsive Politics, there are currently 3,185 lobbyists working all sides of the health care issue. Congress has 535 members. That means there are nearly half a dozen lobbyists for every elected official on Capitol Hill on this topic alone.

Keep reading

 Randi Kaye | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Program Note: Randi Kaye is Keeping them Honest with more details tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Randi Kaye | BIO
AC360° Anchor

It all started in 1991 just days before Christmas in the small town of Corsicana, Texas.

Cameron Todd Willingham was home alone with his three little girls when the house caught on fire. All three children died and Willingham got out with just some minor burns. He was convicted of "arson homicide" and sentenced to death for setting the fire while his wife was out shopping for Christmas presents.

I've covered this case for years now for AC360° and there are still so many unanswered questions.

Top of the list: "Was an innocent man executed?" And now, is Texas Governor Rick Perry trying to cover up evidence that would show he was innocent? Willingham died by lethal injection February 17, 2004, after Texas Governor Rick Perry refused to grant him a stay even though new evidence had come to light that the fire was not arson! Mr. Perry is now in a heated re-election campaign.

Willingham's stepmother, Eugena Willingham, told me she visited her son on death row every six weeks for 12 years. She always believed in her son's innocence. I remember discussing the case over iced tea and homemade cookies in her Ardmore, Oklahoma home. She's a sweet woman with a Texas-sized heart.

A family photo shows Cameron Todd Willingham with his wife, Stacy, and daughters Kameron, Amber and Karmon.

We sat in her kitchen a couple years ago, when I first interviewed her for a story on AC360°, and she showed me the family photo album. So many pictures of her son Todd and her granddaughters. She told me, "Todd called them his babies." She spread his ashes over their graves.

For weeks, Governor Perry has been facing criticism for suddenly removing four members of a state commission which had set out to determine once and for all if Todd Willingham was innocent when he died.

This replacement of four members of the commission that had already been working on the case means the state's work on the case is delayed, and maybe even derailed for good. The findings were supposed to be released just weeks before the Texas Republican Primary vote.

One person watching this case with eyes wide open now is Dorenda Lynn Brokofsky. She was on the jury in the Willingham arson trial back in 1992 and she told me today, she hasn't slept very much since. All these years later, Brokofsky wonders if Willingham was innocent, even though she decided along with the others at the time that he was guilty.

Gov. Rick Perry's office said the moves were a routine replacement of members whose terms had expired.

We spoke by phone from her home in the midwest, where she moved after leaving Corsicana, where the fire took place. She dropped a couple of bombshells that left many of us here at AC360° shaking our heads.

She told me, "My dad was a fire marshall for eight years in Corsicana." He wasn't the fire marshall at the time of the Willingham fire, but she had a connection. And get this, she said her family was "good friends" with Douglas Fogg. Fogg was the deputy fire marshall and a key witness in the case. Fogg’s determination that the fire was arson really helped send Willingham to death row.

I interviewed Douglas Fogg years ago about this case and he told me he still stands by his findings and believes Willingham set the fire. I asked him if he's at all concerned he may have sent an innocent man to his death? He said, simply, "No."

But back to the juror who knew Investigator Fogg. How could prosecutors, the judge, and even the defense, let a woman on the jury who was "good friends" with a key witness for the prosecution and the deputy investigator? Wouldn't that be a mistrial? Too late for Todd Willingham now, but the juror told me, "I told them I knew Mr. Fogg but they didn't care."

To this day, Brokofsky isn't sure Willingham was guilty. "When you're sitting there with all those facts, there was nothing else we could see. Now I don't know. I can't tell you he's innocent, I can't say 100 percent he's guilty," Dorenda said.

"I don't sleep at night because of a lot of this,” she told me. “I have gone back and forth in my mind trying to think of anything that we missed. I don't like the fact that years later someone is saying maybe we made a mistake. That the facts aren't what they could've been."

Brokofsky said, "I've got to stand in front of my God one day and explain what I did."

To be fair, Todd Willingham wasn't perfect. He had a history and was known around town for domestic disputes with his wife. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has always said there was "overwhelming" evidence Willingham was guilty, just yesterday called him a "monster" and said he had tried to beat his wife into having an abortion, suggesting Willingham did not want the children. Willingham's stepmother told me they did fight, but she "never saw any bruises on his wife."

When I told the juror that arson science has changed over the years and that at least half a dozen arson experts now say the fire was not arson and not intentionally set, Brokofsky got so upset she had to get off the phone. She said she needed some time to "process this."

Imagine, wondering all your life, if you sent an innocent man to the death chamber?

Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed a fourth member of a state commission charged with investigating claims that an innocent man may have been executed.

The Texas governor has now replaced all of the four members that, under law, he is allowed to appoint to the commission. The remaining five members are appointed by the state's lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Perry's critics say his actions are politically motivated, a charge he denies.

The investigation into claims that faulty evidence led Texas to execute an innocent man in 2004 was at a "crucial point" when the shakeup occurred, one of the replaced members said.

The commission was to hear from the author of a scathing report in the case of the executed man, Cameron Todd Willingham, when Perry announced on September 30 that he would replace three members.

The session was postponed indefinitely because of the new appointments, and Perry's critics accused him of trying to quash the Willingham probe.

Learn more about the story here.

Program Note: Tune in tonight for more on the Willingham case from Randi Kaye. Tonight AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

A family photo shows Cameron Todd Willingham with his wife, Stacy, and daughters Kameron, Amber and Karmon.

The Innocence Project

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed a fourth member of a state commission charged with investigating claims that an innocent man may have been executed, his office said. The Texas governor has now replaced all of the four members that, under law, he is allowed to appoint to the commission. The remaining five members are appointed by the state's lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck called the move “troubling."

The Innocence Project ("IP") was established in 1992 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law by civil rights attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld and is dedicated to exonerating the innocent through post-conviction DNA testing. Since its inception, more than 215 people in the United States have been exonerated, including 16 who were at one time sentenced to death. In many of these DNA exonerations, the Innocence Project either was the attorney of record or consulted with the defendant's attorneys.

Read more about the Innocence Project and its work here.

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear more from Peter Flaherty tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Peter Flaherty
President, National Legal & Policy Center

With the spotlight this week on House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), we found this timeline of his current issues posted by the National Legal and Policy Center.

July 11, 2008- New York Times’ David Kocieniewski reports that Rangel occupies three rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury building, and uses a fourth as a campaign office.

July 14, 2008- NLPC files Complaint with the Federal Election commission alleging use of a rent-stabilized apartment for a campaign office comprises an illegal corporate contribution from the landlord. Rangel announces he will close the office.

July 15, 2008- Christopher Lee of the Washington Post reports that Rangel solicited donations on Congressional letterhead to the so-called Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York (CCNY), in violation of House rules.

Find the rest of the timeline here...