Category Archives: US crime

Las Vegas politician accused of journalist’s murder takes stand in his own defense

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Robert Telles on trial over murder of Jeff German, who wrote critical articles about the public administrator

A Las Vegas politician accused of murdering a local investigative journalist who wrote critical articles about him took the stand in his own defense on Wednesday, giving his testimony in narrative style, without being asked questions.

“Right now I want to say unequivocally: I’m innocent. I didn’t kill Mr German. And I’ve got a lot to share with you all,” said Robert Telles, a former Clark county public administrator.

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Escaped prisoner serving murder sentence caught at North Carolina hotel

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Ramone Alston will be charged with felony escape from prison after fleeing from van on way to hospital

A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder was captured at a North Carolina hotel early on Friday, three days after his escape on the way to a medical appointment, and authorities say he had help from at least one person.

Ramone Alston, 30, escaped from a van on Tuesday as it arrived at the UNC Gastroenterology hospital in Hillsborough, where he was being taken for a medical appointment. He freed himself from his leg restraints and fled into the woods with handcuffs on, according to the North Carolina department of adult correction.

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Missouri woman charged in scheme to steal Graceland and extort Presley heirs

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Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, arrested for falsely claiming Elvis Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8m from a bogus lender

A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges that she orchestrated a scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property, before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale, the US justice department said on Friday.

Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, Missouri, falsely claimed Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8m from a bogus private lender and pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan. She fabricated loan documents, tried to extort Presley’s family out of $2.85m to settle the matter, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing that Graceland would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, prosecutors said.

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Matthew Perry allegedly took several doses of ketamine on day of his death

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Friends star asked his assistant to inject him with drug several times on day he died, court papers say

The Friends star Matthew Perry ordered his live-in personal assistant to give him several intravenous doses of ketamine on the day of his death last year, according to a statement by the assistant to investigators.

The actor, who was found drowned in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home last October, asked his assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, to give him a dose at 8.30am, according to court papers.

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Los Angeles police arrest four suspects over killing of actor Johnny Wactor

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General Hospital star, 37, was shot dead in downtown LA in May after interrupting men taking car’s catalytic converter

Police have arrested four suspects in the fatal shooting of Johnny Wactor, the actor best known for his role on General Hospital.

The four suspects were arrested in Los Angeles, and range in age from 18 to 22. Three of the suspects were booked on arrest warrants for murder and the fourth was booked as an accessory.

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Gun owned by infamous LA officer found amid $1m robbery investigation

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Two men charged with robbing luxury watch had firearm of Christopher Dorner, who killed four people and died in 2013

Authorities are investigating how a gun registered to an infamous Los Angeles police officer ended up at the Airbnb of two men recently charged in the robbery of a $1m watch in Beverly Hills.

Investigators discovered the weapon earlier this month after they connected the Airbnb to a vehicle involved in another Beverly Hills theft, authorities said. The weapon was registered to Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles police department (LAPD) officer who killed the daughter of a former LAPD captain and her fiance as well as two others over nine days in 2013 before dying in a dramatic standoff with law enforcement. Dorner had felt he had been wrongly fired by LAPD, and accused the department of racism and corruption.

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DNA links 1986 murder of California woman to convicted serial killer

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William Suff, convicted of 12 murders in 1995, admits killing Cathy Small, then aged 19, after police find genetic link

The long-unsolved 1986 killing of a young southern California woman has been linked to a convicted serial killer who admitted the crime, authorities said on Tuesday.

DNA from the killing of Cathy Small, 19, matched William Suff, who was sentenced to death after being convicted in 1995 of 12 murders that occurred in Riverside county from 1989 to 1991, said Lt Patricia Thomas of Los Angeles county sheriff’s department.

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Ohio officer indicted in fatal shooting of pregnant Black woman

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Ta’Kiya Young had been suspected of shoplifting when Connor Grubb and another officer approached her car

A police officer in Ohio was indicted by a grand jury on murder charges on Tuesday for the 2023 fatal shooting of Ta’Kiya Young, a pregnant Black woman who had been suspected of shoplifting, authorities said.

Young, who was 21, had been suspected of stealing bottles of alcohol from a store last August when Connor Grubb, a Blendon township police officer, and another officer approached her car, the Associated Press reported at the time.

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Briton dies before clearing name after 38 years in US jails for murders he denied

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Body of Kris Maharaj, who died in Florida prison hospital despite judge finding him innocent, will be taken to UK by his wife for burial

During the 38 years Kris Maharaj spent incarcerated in Florida prisons insisting he was innocent of murder, his wife, Marita, dreamed of a life together back in Britain.

This week they will finally be reunited on home soil but not in the way she had hoped.

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Man charged in three 1970s California murders after DNA match

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Warren Luther Alexander, 73, was arrested for the decades-old killings of three women in southern California

A 73-year-old man has been charged in the strangulation deaths of three southern California women in 1977, after cold case detectives obtained a DNA match. Authorities said they believe there could be more victims.

Warren Luther Alexander of Diamondhead, Mississippi, made his first court appearance on Thursday but his arraignment on three counts of first-degree murder was postponed until later in August, the Ventura county district attorney’s office said. Alexander remained jailed without bail.

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New Orleans Catholic priest accused of raping teen in 1975 gets trial date

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Lawrence Hecker will face court on kidnapping and rape charges in September pending a final competency ruling

A doctor’s report says that Lawrence Hecker, the retired New Orleans priest who faces charges of raping a teenager after strangling him unconscious in 1975, has dementia – but it says nothing about Hecker’s competency to stand trial.

On Thursday, after seven hearings and still no definitive determination on Hecker’s competency, his trial on rape and kidnapping charges has been set for 24 September.

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US judge derails Mexico’s $10bn trafficking suit against US gunmakers

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Lawsuit seeks to hold American manufacturers responsible for trafficking of firearms to drug cartels across border

A US judge has dismissed much of Mexico’s unprecedented $10bn lawsuit seeking to hold US gun manufacturers responsible for facilitating the trafficking of firearms to violent drug cartels across the US-Mexico border.

US district judge Dennis Saylor in Boston dismissed claims against six of the eight companies Mexico sued in 2021, including Sturm, Ruger and Glock, citing jurisdictional problems.

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Illinois governor calls for resignation of sheriff whose deputy killed Sonya Massey

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JB Pritzer calls on Jack Campbell to step down over ‘failures’ that led to Sean Grayson fatally shooting Massey

JB Pritzker, Illinois governor, has called for the resignation of the sheriff whose deputy fatally shot Sonya Massey in her home last month after the Black woman had called 911 for help.

Pritzker, a Democrat, said on Wednesday that the sheriff, Jack Campbell, should step down.

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Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran charged in foiled plot to kill US leaders

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Asif Merchant, 46, tried to recruit people for scheme to assassinate figures including Donald Trump, says FBI

A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran has been charged over a foiled conspiracy to carry out political assassinations on US soil, the justice department said on Tuesday as it disclosed what officials say is the latest murder-for-hire plot to target US public figures.

Asif Merchant, 46, sought to recruit people in the United States to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, according to a criminal complaint.

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Alabama jailer pleads guilty in death of prisoner who froze to death in cell

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Joshua Jones reportedly admits that ‘collectively we did it. We killed him’ after Tony Mitchell died of hypothermia

A former corrections officer at an Alabama jail has pleaded guilty in the case of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held naked in a concrete cell for two weeks.

The officer, Joshua Conner Jones, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over the treatment of two prisoners at the Walker county jail.

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US man who planned 2020 Venezuela coup attempt arrested for arms smuggling

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Jordan Goudreau, 48, was charged in New York for smuggling and conspiracy alongside partner Yacsy Álvarez

A former US Green Beret who, in 2020, organized a failed crossborder raid of Venezuelan army deserters to remove President Nicolás Maduro has been arrested in New York on federal arms smuggling charges.

A federal indictment unsealed this week in Tampa, Florida, accuses Jordan Goudreau and a Venezuelan partner, Yacsy Álvarez, of violating US arms control laws when they allegedly assembled and sent to Colombia AR-styled weapons, ammo, night vision goggles and other defense equipment requiring a US export license.

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Son of El Chapo pleads not guilty in Chicago as mystery cloaks cartel arrests

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Officials have mixed accounts around arrest of Sinaloa co-founder El Mayo after Guzmán López turned himself in

Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, days after his arrest in a dramatic operation in which he may have delivered his father’s former business partner to US authorities.

Guzmán López, 38, was detained on Thursday alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, the other co-founder of one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups, after touching down in a small plane in El Paso, Texas.

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Illinois officer charged with killing Sonya Massey had history of ‘bullying’

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Sean P Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies in four years, with allegations of abuse of power and lying

As vigils for Sonya Massey take place across the US this weekend, a history of unethical and aggressive behavior by the officer who shot her, Sean P Grayson, is emerging. Grayson’s disciplinary file includes accusations of bullying behavior and abuse of power, according to CBS News.

Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two living outside Springfield, Illinois, had called 911 when she thought a prowler was lurking outside her home on 6 July. Grayson and another officer from the Sangamon county sheriff’s office were dispatched and arrived at her home. Instead of helping Massey with a possible intruder, Grayson shot her in the face after she moved a pot of water from her kitchen stove at their request.

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Kamala Harris calls Sonya Massey family to give ‘heartfelt condolences’

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James Wilburn, father of Black woman shot dead by Illinois police, says vice-president ‘let us know she is with us 100%’

Vice-President Kamala Harris on Friday called the family of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman who was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in her Illinois home, according to Massey’s family members, who spoke to NBC News.

Massey was killed on 6 July after she called the Sangamon county sheriff’s office because she was afraid there might be a prowler outside, according to an attorney for her family and Illinois state police.

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Mexico president calls for ‘transparency’ amid secrecy over Sinaloa cartel arrests

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US announces arrest of two leaders of organised crime group as Mexican authorities say they were in the dark

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for “transparency” after the sudden and secretive arrests by US authorities of two top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 76, founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and has been a top target of US law enforcement for decades, with a $15m bounty on his head.

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