Tag: crime

California legislators water down bill making buying child prostitutes a felony

Over the author’s objections, California legislators watered down of a bill that would make soliciting sex from underage prostitutes a felony. Under the amended bill now solicitation of 16 and 17 year-olds will remain a misdemeanor.

State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, introduced SB 1414, which would make solicitation, attempting to engage or engaging in sex with a minor for money a felony with a prison sentence ranging from 2 to 4 years, a fine not exceeding $25,000, and registration as a sex offender. The bill would punish all those who solicit from a child, regardless of whether or not the person knew or reasonably should have known that the person solicited was a minor.

Under existing law, such crimes are misdemeanors, with felony charges only available for cases involving minors 14 or under, or use of force, but Grove says these loopholes encourage offenders to use older children to avoid consequences.

“In order to sell a child for sex there must be someone willing to purchase a child for sex,” said Grove to the State Senate Public Safety Committee. “That’s why we’re here today.”

Grove authored SB 14 last year, a bill that became law, which made child sex trafficking a serious felony. SB 14 passed unanimously in the state Senate before failing its first vote in the Assembly Public Safety Committee after Assembly Majority Leader Issac Bryan (D—Los Angeles) blocked the bill over concerns that any increase in sentencing would “increase our investment in systems of harm and subjugation.”

Natasha Minsker, a policy advisor for Smart Justice California and the lead speaker in opposition to the bill, focused on the potential harm to other minors making bad decisions.

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FBI Records Link OKC Bomber to Bank Robbers, Suggesting Case is Still Unsolved

This Friday marks the 29th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed at least 168 people, including 19 children in the deadliest domestic terrorist event in U.S. history.

While that attack may seem like ancient history for some, one attorney in Utah continues to pursue lawsuits against the Justice Department for records about it. The attorney, Jesse Trentadue, thinks that others helped the supposed “lone wolf,” Timothy McVeigh. Specifically, Trentadue has implicated the Aryan Republican Army, or ARA, a gang of neo-Nazi bank robbers who were operating around the same time as McVeigh.

Contrary to Trentadue’s theory, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who helped prosecute McVeigh, continue to insist that the bomber acted alone—receiving only minor help in gathering explosives material from accomplice Terry Nichols.

Garland and the other officials insist there was no link between the ARA and McVeigh. Their media mouthpieces, such as The Washington Post, have said the same. Amidst the ARA and McVeigh’s criminal proceedings in 1997, the Post declared there was “no proof that McVeigh knew the Aryan robbers.”

But the records provided by Trentadue indicate otherwise. Those records show that the FBI also thought McVeigh and the ARA were in cahoots.

One set of previously unpublicized records provided by Trentadue even shows that the FBI directed its field offices to investigate potential McVeigh-ARA links within days of the April 1995 attack. The records are briefly referenced in an epic biography of McVeigh, but have otherwise remained hidden for the last nearly 29 years—until now.

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7th Guard Sentenced for Sexually Abusing Inmates at California’s ‘Rape Club’ Prison

A former correctional officer at a federal women’s prison in Alameda County was sentenced to 72 months in prison for sexually abusing five inmates, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

The low-security Federal Correctional Facility (FCI) in Dublin, California, has been plagued by scandal following a string of lawsuits and federal investigations alleging a “toxic culture” of sexual abuse and retaliation by correctional officers at all levels.

Nakie Nunley, 48, is the eighth staff member to be charged and the seventh to be sentenced so far in connection with a sweeping federal probe that has also put a former warden and chaplain behind bars for similar crimes. In addition to the five victims he admitted to sexually abusing, Nunley described engaging in sexual acts with two other inmates and lying to investigators in his plea agreement.

“Nakie Nunley egregiously exploited his authority by sexually abusing multiple incarcerated women and then retaliating against those who blew the whistle,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. “As today’s sentence shows, the Justice Department will hold accountable officials who abuse their authority to harm those they are sworn to protect — and will not tolerate retaliation against victims.”

Dubbed the “rape club” prison, the California facility is notorious, even within the scandal-plagued federal system. The Justice Department estimates Bureau of Prisons employees sexually abused female prisoners in at least two-thirds of federal prisons from 2002 to 2022.

The Justice Department referenced disturbing details of Nunley’s sexual abuse, as well as how the former officer retaliated against prisoners who complained about his conduct by threatening to have them transferred or have their jobs taken away. All of his victims worked at a call center under his supervision in conjunction with UNICOR, the trade name for prison industries.

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Illegal Alien Tries to Rob Bank in Ohio Using a Translator App Because He Couldn’t Figure Out How to Say “Put the Money in the Bag”

In a bizarre twist to bank robbery attempts, an alleged illegal immigrant tried to rob a bank in Sandusky, Ohio using a translator app on his phone to demand money from the tellers.

The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Yeixon Brito-Gonzalez from Venezuela, found himself in the grips of the law shortly after his failed attempt.

The incident happened on April 4, when local police were alerted to a suspicious individual inside a bank who was attempting to communicate with the tellers via his phone, without speaking, FOX 8 reported.

According to Sandusky Police Chief Jared Oliver, the security footage from the bank clearly showed Brito-Gonzalez using the translator app to convey messages such as “get the money” and “put the money in the bag” to the bank staff.

Despite his efforts, the tellers did not comply with his demands, leading Brito-Gonzalez to leave the premises empty-handed. His departure from the scene was short-lived, however, as Sandusky officers apprehended him nearby shortly after the incident.

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CNN Reporter Slips Up, Suggests People Were “Happy” OJ “Could Get Away With” It Because He Was Black

A CNN reporter made a revealing Freudian slip when she suggested people were “happy to see ” OJ Simpson “get away with” it because he was black.

Simpson died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 76, it was announced yesterday.

The former NFL star was cleared of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994 in the so-called “trial of the century,” although many believe the verdict was wrong.

Simpson was later found liable of murder in a civil trial and ordered to pay a $33.5million judgment to the victim’s families.

Commenting on Simpson’s death, CNN’s Stephanie Elam placed it in the context of the race riots of the 1990’s, arguing that people were “happy to see” OJ being cleared as a form of restorative racial justice.

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‘This is bloody; this is gory’: Judge denies early release for infamous Slender Man stabber citing ‘credibility’ and ‘risk’

Morgan Geyser, 21, the infamous Slender Man stabber, has been found to simply be far too dangerous to be released from a mental hospital.

“We come back to risk,” Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael O’Bohren said when explaining his decision. “This isn’t just an aspect where somebody drove a car into another car and drove off and let them sit there. This is a personal — a personal, if you will — a brutal attack on another person. This is hands-on, if you will. This is bloody; this is gory. But that kind of risk, that kind of dangerous conduct is what the risk is. Do we know if someone will repeat it? We don’t know.”

The court heard hours of testimony for and against Geyser’s potential release over the course of a two-day hearing.

In 2018, Geyser received a sentence of 40 years to life in a mental hospital in 2018, with the periodic possibility of early release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute where she has called home since shortly after the 2014 attempt on her friend, Payton Leutner’s, life.

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French woman found dead in Italian church was searching for ghosts in possible Tik Tok stunt, police say

A 22-year-old French woman whose blood-drained body was found in an abandoned church in northern Italy’s Aosta Valley over the weekend had been looking for a haunted house believed to contain ghosts, according to police.

She told family members about her plans before leaving the village near Lyon where she lived, a police spokeswoman in the town of La Salle told CNN.

Police believe the victim could have been attempting to carry out a TikTok stunt, adding that her death could be related to a ghost hunting competition being played in France on the social media platform. The other working theories are that it was a “consented murder” or sacrifice, or an attempt to carry out a social media prank in the deconsecrated church. Police are still searching for a young man who was seen with her. There are also two other missing persons cases in the area which police say could be related.

According to the spokeswoman, the victim and a male friend had been seen in the area dressed “like vampires.” A witness interviewed by police say the young woman was pale and “emaciated” and the man had dark hair and olive skin. The witness told police investigators that she looked like a “walking corpse.”

The dead woman, whose name has not been released, had been stabbed with what investigators say was a camping knife and had bled to death, according to medical examiner Roberto Testi. She also had two gunshots to her neck and one to her abdomen that police say may have been inflicted after she died. Some of the blood had been scraped off the floor and removed from the crime scene, police told CNN. There were no signs of struggle, police say.

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Slender Man stabber who almost killed classmate when she was 12 is too dangerous to free from mental hospital, psychologists tell court

The Slender Man stabber who nearly killed a classmate when she was 12-years-old is is too dangerous to be released from a mental hospital, a court has heard. 

Morgan Geyser, now 21, has requested to leave Winnebago Mental Health Institute on conditional release, 10 years after she was ordered to spend 40 years there over the 2014 stabbing of Payton Leutner, who was also 12 at the time. 

But on Wednesday, two psychologists said doing so would be a bad idea, with one branding the would-be killer’s behavior as ‘callous’. 

‘It’s my opinion to a reasonable degree of professional certainty that she currently presents a significant risk of bodily harm to herself or others if conditionally released,’  Dr. Deborah Collins said. 

Another psychologist, Dr. Brooke Lundbohm told the court: ‘That would be rather remarkable. That would be very callous as well,’ of Geyser’s claims that she’d previously faked psychosis symptoms 

Geyster appeared in court Thursday handcuffed, with her head partly-shaved and a haunted-expression on her face. She wore a tweed dress and black pantyhose. 

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Trans Antifa member arrested over bombing at Alabama Attorney General’s Office

A trans person with links to Antifa was arrested and charged with the February detonation an improvised explosive device, a nail bomb, outside the Alabama attorney general’s Montgomery office.  

Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, of Irondale, Alabama, was indicted on Wednesday and charged with malicious use of an explosive and possession of an unregistered destructive device. 

The charges per the indictment allege that Calvert “maliciously damaged, and attempted to maliciously damage, by means of fire and explosive materials, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office,” and that Calvert “knowingly possessed a firearm, to wit: a destructive device… which was not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” 

A detention memo from a US attorney’s office stated, “That device had the characteristics of an IED, and Calvert added a substantial number of nails and other shrapnel to increase its destructive capability.” 

The explosion was outside the office of Attorney General Steve Marshall on February 24, in the early hours of the morning, at approximately 3:42 am. Surveillance footage showed an individual wearing dark clothes, a mask, and goggles near the statehouse.  

In addition to the explosive device, law enforcement officers discovered that Calvert vandalized state buildings with stickers that were advocating for various political ideologies. These included Antifa and anti-police sentiments as well as sentiments expressing opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Some of those stickers read, “Support your local antifa,” and surveillance footage showed the individual putting the stickers on the doors of the Alabama State Capitol Building. Shortly thereafter, the suspect could be seen near the attorney general’s office, right before the explosion. They were then seen walking away. 

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Government Vows Increased Deportations As Violent Crime Explodes In Germany

Crime in Germany has exploded to levels not seen in close to a decade, with a huge increase in migrants committing offences, especially violent crimes.

Statistics from the German Interior Ministry released on Tuesday show that the number of foreign suspects rocketed up to around 923,000 in 2023, correlating to a whopping 18 percent increase in just one year.

The data further shows that 41 percent of all crime suspects in Germany are foreigners, despite only representing 15 percent of the total population.

Overall there has been a massive 14.5% increase in the number of non-German suspects of violent crime.

The report notes that there has been a 5.5% increase in crime and an 8.6% rise in violent crime in 2023, which is now at a 15 year high.

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