Category Archives: US crime

US victim wrongly locked up for years vindicated as identity thief pleads guilty

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William Woods was sent to a mental institution because Matthew Keirans – who faces 32 years in prison – stole his name for decades

William Woods was homeless and living in Los Angeles when he learned that someone was racking up debt using his name.

But when he reported his concerns to the branch manager of a bank, he wound up spending nearly two years locked up, accused of identity theft himself. As he continued to insist he was Woods in a desperate effort to clear his name, he was even sent to a state mental hospital and drugged, court records show.

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Two dead and seven wounded in shooting at Florida shopping mall

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Security guard killed at bar in CityPlace Doral following altercation, with gunman then shot dead by police

Two people have died and seven have been wounded following a shooting at a popular shopping mall in Florida.

A fight broke out at the Martini Bar located in the CityPlace Doral early on Saturday morning, according to Miami-Dade police. The altercation resulted in a security guard, who intervened in the dispute, being shot and killed by the gunman, who was then also killed in a subsequent gun battle with police, according to Alvaro Zabaleta, a Miami-Dade detective.

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Los Angeles thieves steal $30m in cash from safe without setting off any alarms

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One of the largest cash heists in the city’s history went unnoticed until police opened vault that few people knew about

Thieves in Los Angeles pulled off one of the largest cash heists in city history over the weekend, stealing as much as $30m from a money storage facility on Easter Sunday, authorities said on Wednesday.

The break-in unfolded at an unnamed facility in the Sylmar area of the San Fernando Valley that handles and stores cash from businesses across the region. Burglars were able to enter without immediate detection and breached a safe, said Elaine Morales, a Los Angeles police department commander, to the Los Angeles Times.

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Alex Murdaugh sentenced to 40 years for stealing from clients and law firm

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Disbarred attorney already serving life sentence without parole in South Carolina prison for killing his wife and son

For maybe the last time, the convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh – in a prison jumpsuit instead of the suit he used to wear – shuffled into a courtroom on Monday in South Carolina and received a prison sentence.

This time, it was for 40 years in federal court for financial crimes.

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Seven children, ages 12 to 17, wounded in Indianapolis mass shooting, police say

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Victims transported to area hospitals after police heard shots fired near Circle Centre Mall on Saturday night

Seven children between the ages of 12 and 17 were wounded in one of the US’s latest mass shooting, which erupted outside a shopping mall in downtown Indianapolis late Saturday night, authorities said.

Police officers patrolling the area heard shots fired near the Circle Centre Mall shortly after 11.30pm, said the deputy chief of the Indianapolis metropolitan police department, Tanya Terry.

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Hot Boys rapper BG faces return to prison over alleged probation offense

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Christopher Dorsey, 43 accused of performing alongside other rappers without obtaining permission from authorities

About two months into his supervised release from federal prison on gun charges, the rapper who scored a hit song with Bling Bling has been charged with violating the terms of his supervision after performing alongside other prominent entertainers without authorities’ permission.

A federal judge ordered Christopher Dorsey – or BG, who once belonged to Cash Money Records’ rap supergroup the Hot Boys – released on his own recognizance on Wednesday after his arrest on the charges, records show.

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Trump appeals ruling letting Fani Willis stay on election interference case

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Attorneys for ex-president and eight co-defendants ask Georgia’s appellate court to remove Fulton county district attorney

Donald Trump’s legal team on Friday sought to overturn a Fulton county, Georgia, judge’s decision allowing Fani Willis to continue as prosecutor of that state’s election interference case against the former president.

“[T]he indictment should have been dismissed and, at a minimum, [District Attorney] Willis and her office should have been disqualified from prosecuting the case,” Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow said, in part, in the appeal filed on Friday to an appellate court in Georgia.

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Mounting legal troubles for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs with federal raids in LA and Miami

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Sex-trafficking investigation comes amid multiple lawsuits including singer Cassie accusing him of rape and physical abuse

The rapper and mogul Sean Combs is facing mounting legal troubles after federal agents searched his properties in Los Angeles and Miami as part of a sex-trafficking investigation.

On Monday morning, US Department of Homeland Security agents in tactical gear and armored vehicles raided two of Combs’ mansions as part of an investigation by federal authorities in New York, sources told the Associated Press.

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Claims of ‘lawlessness’ on New York City subways increase danger, critics say

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Violent crimes in 2024 have been used as ‘political tool’, and law enforcement response does not solve root issues, critics say

A high-profile string of violent crimes on New York City’s subway in 2024 has been used “as a political tool” by pundits and politicians, transit advocates say, leading to a false perception of spiraling underground crime, which could create more danger in the future.

Crime in the subway system, one of the world’s most used rapid transit systems, declined in 2022 and decreased again in 2023, according to police. But subway crime is up so far in 2024, and it is the nature and violence of the incidents that has captured public attention.

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Idaho: white supremacist prisoner on the run after brazen hospital ambush

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Three corrections officers injured after unknown accomplice of gang member Skylar Meade stages attack after hospital trip

A white supremacist prison gang member in Idaho and an accomplice remained on the loose Wednesday after the accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital, police said.

Police identified the man suspected of shooting two corrections officers during the ambush as Nicholas Umphenour. A warrant with a $2 m bond has been issued for his arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said.

Police said the search continues for Umphenour and escaped inmate Skylar Meade, who fled the hospital early Wednesday in a gray 2020 Honda Civic with Idaho plates. It’s not known where they are or where they are headed, police said.

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Teenage twin sisters stabbed, one fatally, at New York deli

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Sanyia Spain, 19, said that attacker made advances towards her and her sister Samyia and violently retaliated when they declined

Early Sunday morning in New York’s Park Slope neighborhood, 19-year-old twins Samyia and Sanyia Spain were stabbed by an unknown assailant following an altercation. The sisters were taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist hospital, where Samyia died and Sanyia was released after being treated for her injuries.

Sanyia said in an interview with the New York Daily News that the attacker made advances towards both girls, and violently retaliated when they declined. The teens were with a group of friends and relatives inside a bodega moments before the stabbings occurred.

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Criminal fraud trial of UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch to begin

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Co-founder of Autonomy charged with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy in 2011 sale of company to HP

A British technology tycoon once lauded as “Britain’s Bill Gates” was the “driving force” behind a “massive” years-long fraud, prosecutors alleged, as his criminal trial got under way in San Francisco on Monday.

Prosecutors said Mike Lynch, co-founder of the UK software company Autonomy, ruled the firm “with an iron fist” before its blockbuster takeover by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

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FBI returns 22 looted artifacts to Japan after discovery in Massachusetts attic

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Investigation of items that were stolen during the Okinawa battle began after family discovered them in late father’s belongings

The FBI has returned 22 centuries-old artifacts to Okinawa, Japan, after a family discovered them in their late father’s attic in Massachusetts.

Agents with the FBI’s Boston division on Friday announced that the return of the looted items followed a lengthy investigation that began when they received a call from a family who came across the items while sorting through their dead dad’s belongings.

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Philadelphia shooting suspect will face charges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey

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The gunman is suspected of killing his stepmother, his sister, and the mother of his children before being arrested in New Jersey

The suspect involved in the fatal shootings of three people outside a Philadelphia-area suburb on Saturday morning has been arrested and will face charges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, authorities said on Sunday.

According to authorities, 26-year-old Andre Gordon was found near a house in Trenton, New Jersey, after carrying out two separate shootings. Police had surrounded the home for hours in the belief that he was there, but Gordon apparently slipped out before the police cordon went up. He was arrested at around 5 pm, unarmed, when he was spotted walking down a street a few blocks away, police said.

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Former Trump adviser appeals to supreme court to keep him out of prison

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Peter Navarro is appealing his conviction for contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with the January 6 House inquiry

Donald Trump White House official Peter Navarro appealed to the US supreme court on Friday to allow him to stay out of prison as he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction.

Navarro is due to report to a federal prison on Tuesday after an appeals court ruled that his appeal wasn’t likely to overturn his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6 attack that Trump supporters aimed at the US Capitol in 2021.

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Police had cause to detain gunman before deadly Maine shooting last year – report

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Before Robert Card killed 18 last year, police had opportunity to seize his guns and place him in custody after several incidents

Law enforcement should have seized a man’s guns and put him in protective custody weeks before he committed Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, a report found Friday.

An independent commission has been reviewing the events that led up to army reservist Robert Card killing 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston on 25 October, as well as the subsequent response.

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Judge orders special master for California prison known for rampant sexual abuse

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Several employees at the federal correctional institution in Dublin have pleaded guilty to abusing female inmates

A judge called a California federal women’s prison known for rampant sexual abuse against inmates “a dysfunctional mess” on Friday as she ordered a special master to oversee the facility, marking the first time the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been subject to such an action.

“The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change,” wrote US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, adding that the Bureau of Prisons has “proceeded sluggishly with intentional disregard of the inmates’ constitutional rights despite being fully apprised of the situation for years. The repeated installation of BOP leadership who fail to grasp and address the situation strains credulity.”

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US rancher used tissue and testicles to breed ‘giant’ sheep to sell for hunting

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Arthur Schubarth, 80, pleads guilty to trafficking in ‘audacious’ and unlawful scheme to cross-breed sheep for lucrative sale

A Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep killed by hunters in central Asia and the US to breed “giant” hybrid sheep for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas, according to court documents and federal prosecutors.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, of Vaughn, Montana, pleaded guilty to felony charges of wildlife trafficking and conspiracy to traffic wildlife during an appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Great Falls.

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Three men charged with murder in deaths of US couple who disappeared in Caribbean

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Ralph Hendry, 66, and Kathleen Brandel, 77, had been cruising the eastern Caribbean when their catamaran was hijacked

Three men who had escaped from prison have been charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths of an American couple who disappeared in the Caribbean in February after their catamaran was hijacked.

The Royal Grenada Police Force announced Friday that Trevon Robertson, 23; Atiba Stanislaus, 25; and Ron Mitchell, 30, were re-arrested on two counts of capital murder in the slayings of Ralph Hendry and Kathleen Brandel.

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Trump-backed former congressional candidate arrested for murder

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Daniel Rodimer, a former pro-wrestler, suspected in killing of Christopher Tapp in Las Vegas

A former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.

Daniel Rodimer, 45, was booked in connection with the slaying of 47-year-old Christopher Tapp, who was reportedly beaten to death in Resorts World Las Vegas on 29 October.

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