Category Archives: US crime

California: kidnapper sentenced in case police first said was ‘Gone Girl’ hoax

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Matthew Muller guilty of rape and false imprisonment in intricate attack which authorities first dismissed – to their cost – as staged

A man who sexually assaulted a northern California woman who was kidnapped from her home in what police initially thought was a hoax was sentenced on Friday to 31 years in state prison.

Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence for federal crimes, was sentenced in Solano county superior court after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Denise Huskins, who was dragged from her Vallejo home in 2015, the county district attorney’s office said.

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New York mayor’s crime plans reinforce ‘worst parts of NYPD’, say experts

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Plainclothes unit and enthusiasm for facial recognition technology are worrying civil rights advocates

While New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has been defending his veganism and equating drug dependency to liking cheese, he has been escalating the city’s police powers, deeply concerning civil rights advocates.

Adams, the second Black person to serve as New York mayor, largely won the mayorship through securing the votes of Black, brown and working-class New Yorkers.

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‘Incels’ are a rising threat in the US, Secret Service report finds

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Some behavioral themes identified include concerning online content, a history of being bullied and financial instability

A new US Secret Service report details a rising threat from men who identify as “involuntary celibates” or “incels”, due to their inability to form intimate relationships with women.

The report released on Tuesday and prepared by the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) highlights behavioral threat assessment themes identified in years of research examining targeted violence.

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Chicago police officers won’t be charged in shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo

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State’s attorney says there’s insufficient evidence to charge officers in the deaths of Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez

No charges will be filed against the Chicago police officers who chased and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez within days of each other last year, prompting sharp criticism of how the department handles foot pursuits, a prosecutor announced on Tuesday.

The Cook county state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, said there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers in the deaths, which were captured on video that showed both suspects appeared to have handguns before the shootings.

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Proud Boys leader had plans to ‘storm’ government buildings on 6 January

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Enrique Tarrio possessed document titled ‘1776 Returns’, with details to invade and occupy seven buildings, New York Times says

The former leader of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right nationalist group whose members were prominent in the January 6 riot, was found in possession of comprehensive plans to “surveil and storm” government buildings, prosecutors said.

Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman who was arrested last week and charged with conspiracy over the deadly attack, had a nine-page document entitled “1776 Returns”, named for the year of American independence, the New York Times reported.

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MoMA stabbing: New York police still searching for man who attacked staff

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Man who was denied entrance on Saturday for previous incidents of disorderly conduct identified as 60-year-old Gary Cabana

Video from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City showed the moment a man leaped over a reception desk and stabbed two employees as they tried to flee on Saturday.

The video released by police showed a man identified as 60-year-old Gary Cabana enter the museum lobby through a revolving door then climb onto the desk and jump over it as a man carrying what appeared to be a walkie-talkie tried in vain to stop him.

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Two employees of New York’s MoMA stabbed after man denied entrance

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New York police said the man’s membership had been revoked for previous incidents of disorderly conduct

A man stabbed two people inside the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Saturday afternoon after he was denied entrance for previous incidents of disorderly conduct, authorities said.

Police said the two people who were stabbed were museum employees. Both were in stable condition at Bellevue hospital.

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Tinder now offers criminal background checks, but there’s a big problem

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Experts say that, while intended to increase safety, the tool lacks nuance and risks amplifying biases in the criminal justice system

As of this week, Tinder users will be able to run criminal background checks on their potential dates. The feature – launched in partnership with Garbo, a background check provider that aims to make public safety information more accessible – is intended to make Tinder users feel safer.

But experts who specialize in sexual violence and surveillance have said the move is misguided, and risks amplifying the biases inherent in the criminal justice system.

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Actor Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail for lying to police about fake hate crime

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Empire actor was found guilty in December in the attack that he orchestrated and must also serve 30 months of probation

Actor Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 30 months of probation, including 150 days of jail time, and ordered to pay restitution for his conviction of lying to police about a racist and homophobic attack that he orchestrated himself.

Smollett, who is Black and gay, reported to police that two men wearing ski masks beat him, and hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him on a dark Chicago street and ran off. The 39 year old was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago and fined $25,000 by Judge James Linn of Cook county circuit court.

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Brother and sister charged with cryptocurrency fraud in New York

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John Barksdale faces up to 65 in prison in connection with Ormeus Coin as well as facing civil charges alongside JonAtina Barksdale

US authorities on Tuesday filed criminal charges against a cryptocurrency executive and civil charges against him and his sister, accusing them of defrauding retail investors out of millions of dollars with a digital token known as Ormeus Coin.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the justice department said John Barksdale lied about the value and profitability of Ormeus Coin’s mining assets, including that the coin was backed by a $250m mining operation generating more than $5m of monthly revenue.

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Texas man could become first Capitol rioter convicted by jury as trial ends

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Department of Justice lawyers make closing arguments against Guy Reffitt, first of 750 people charged with joining riot to face trial

Federal prosecutors on Monday finished presenting testimony against a Texas man who is the first person to be tried on charges related to the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January last year.

Guy Reffitt told US district judge Dabney Friedrich he would not be testifying at his trial on charges that he stormed the Capitol armed with a holstered handgun and interfered with police.

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The New York trial that has it all: Hollywood, megayachts, giant sums of money

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The 1MDB swindle is one of the most remarkable cases to hit New York’s justice system in years – but the trial poses a number of unanswered questions

It started, at least in terms of the public’s recognition, with a giant spending spree that reads like a Christmas wishlist for a billionaire.

Picasso’s Women of Algiers for $179m; $100m to fund the production budget of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and a $600,000 Oscar statuette given to Marlon Brando for best actor in On the Waterfront – a gift for the movie’s star Leonardo DiCaprio. But it did not stop there: there was also a custom-built megayacht; a Beverly Hills hotel; a $415m stake in EMI music publishing; and a transparent grand piano.

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Ghislaine Maxwell trial juror to plead fifth amendment at hearing

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Juror had marked ‘no’ in response to sexual abuse question but claimed in post-trial interviews that he was victimized in his youth

A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial who apparently did not disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection will invoke his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination at an 8 March hearing.

This juror, who is named Scotty David, was on 24 February ordered to appear in court for questioning about his answers on a screening questionnaire for then-prospective jurors.

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Las Vegas shooting: 13 wounded and one dead at hookah lounge, police say

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Two people reported critically injured in Nevada shooting, which happened early on Saturday morning

Fourteen people were shot before dawn on Saturday at a hookah lounge in Las Vegas. Police said one man died and two people suffered critical injuries.

The shooting happened at about 3.15am and preliminary information indicated there was a party during which two people got into an altercation and exchanged gunfire, striking multiple people, said police captain Dori Koren.

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A woman’s boyfriend was holding her captive. Sticky notes helped her escape

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Brandon Toseland has been charged after Las Vegas police discovered the woman and her daughter – and the body of her son

On Tuesday, a 7-year-old girl arrived at her Las Vegas elementary school with a stash of sticky notes in her hand, which she gave to her teacher. The notes, from her mother, were a cry for help.

The woman wrote that she was being held captive by her boyfriend and feared that her 4-year-old son, who she had not seen for weeks, was dead, according to her attorney. After the teacher notified authorities, police went to the home of Brandon Toseland, where they found the body of Mason Dominguez in Toseland’s freezer.

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Ghislaine Maxwell juror to be quizzed in court as lawyers push for retrial

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Judge says Scotty David, who may have failed to disclose childhood abuse during jury selection, must return for court hearing

A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial who might not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection for the high-profile case will now be questioned publicly as Maxwell’s team seeks a retrial, court papers released on Thursday said.

One newly released document also includes the written questionnaire that Juror No 50 completed during the selection process. In response to the question “Have you or a friend ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?” the juror marked the “no” box.

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Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers found guilty of federal hate crimes

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Jury reaches decision after several hours on charges against Greg and Travis McMichael and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan

The three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty of federal hate crimes on Tuesday, for violating Arbery’s civil rights and targeting him because he was Black.

A jury of eight white people, three Black people and one Hispanic person, reached its decision after several hours of deliberation on the charges against father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan.

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Bernie Madoff’s sister and her husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide

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Palm Beach county sheriff says Sondra Wiener, 87, and 90-year-old husband Marvin Wiener found dead on Thursday

The sister of the Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff and her husband were found dead in Florida in what investigators said was an apparent murder-suicide.

The Palm Beach county sheriff’s office on Sunday identified the couple as 87-year-old Sondra Wiener of Boynton Beach and her 90-year-old husband, Marvin Wiener.

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Police reportedly link woman to crime using DNA taken from her rape kit

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San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking out

San Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.

The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures.

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Ghislaine Maxwell lawyers cannot keep retrial arguments under seal, judge rules

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Lawyers want new trial after juror Scotty David gave interviews in which he said he had been sexually abused as a child

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers cannot keep sealed their detailed legal arguments about a juror in her trial who might not have disclosed childhood sex abuse during jury selection, a judicial decision issued Friday said.

Judge Alison Nathan wrote: “[The] defendant’s motion to temporarily seal, in their entirety, all documents related to the motion for a new trial, is denied.”

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