Tag: crime

New York lawmakers seek major expansion of state power to criminalize sexual relations

Due to pressure from activists and political figures including President Joe Biden, colleges have made it harder for students accused of sexual misconduct to show they obtained “consent” from their partners.

Lawmakers in New York are now looking to expand this effort to criminal courts.

Bills in the state Assembly (A6540) and Senate (S6200) would nullify consent if it were obtained through “deception, fraud, concealment or artifice,” meaning a person who told a falsehood or incomplete truth in the pursuit of sex could be prosecuted for sexual assault.

Assembly sponsor Rebecca Seawright portrayed the measure, which would define consent for the first time in New York penal law, as needed to “hold predators like Harvey Weinstein accountable.” 

A press conference outside her office featured two women who testified against the disgraced Hollywood producer, Tarale Wulff and Dawn Dunning, according to ABC News. Since Weinstein defended himself by claiming “that he felt confused” about the definition of consent, “there will be no more confusion” under this legislation, Wulff said.

The Senate version, sponsored by James Sanders, invokes sexual assault trials for Weinstein and entertainer Bill Cosby. Jurists in both proceedings told jurors to use their “common sense” in defining consent, which resulted in a mistrial for Cosby, an extensive “Justification” section claims.

“Failure to define consent creates disparate outcomes in convicting sexual predators as each jury grapples to create its own definition with no guidance from New York State’s statutes,” the Senate version reads. “This vital concept cannot be left to chance.”

New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield faulted their wording as being unrealistic “in the real world.”

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Who Killed Adam Toledo?

On March 29, just after 2:30 AM, Chicago’s ShotSpotter alert system detected eight or nine gunshots in the West Side, largely Latino, neighborhood of Little Village, where gangs like the Latin Kings and Two Six have made gunplay a regular part of life. Chicago police officer Eric Stillman and his partner sped toward the gunshots once they received the ShotSpotter alert, doubtless hoping to nab the perpetrators and spare the community additional carnage. When they arrived on the scene, almost immediately after those shots were fired, they happened upon two individuals. One of them—who we now know to be 13-year-old Adam Toledo—took off on foot and, at one point, pulled a gun with his right hand. Stillman gave chase, and the world saw what happened next—at least the part highlighted (and, in one case, deceptively edited) by media outlets, many of which elided the actual events of Toledo’s shooting.

The immediate cause of Toledo’s death was the bullet fired by Officer Stillman. But it’s worth examining how a 13-year-old boy ended up in a full sprint through a dark alley at 2:30 AM with a gun in his hand and a police officer on his tail.

Start a few minutes before the shooting. Though it hasn’t gotten much attention, a video compilation that the Chicago Police Department released includes footage that seems to show Toledo walking with a young man before one (or both) fired the eight or nine shots at a passing vehicle near the alley where the police encountered Toledo. Exactly who pulled the trigger remains unclear (the footage is grainy), though CNN reported last Friday, citing prosecutors, that both Toledo’s hand, and the gloves of the man he was with, tested positive for gunshot residue. According to police, that man is a 21-year-old named Ruben Roman, who was arrested at the scene for allegedly obstructing Officer Stillman as he gave chase.

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THE FORT BRAGG MURDERS

Fort Bragg is home to two of the most important formations in the Pentagon’s sprawling, complex special-operations bureaucracy: the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, or ­USASOC, which includes the Rangers and the Green Berets; and JSOC, the “black ops” component of the military. Cloaked in secrecy and sloshing with money, JSOC has operational ­control over the most elite commando units of each of the major service branches, including the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 and the Army’s Delta Force, which it uses to carry out the nation’s most politically risky, no-fail missions, like the killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State, in 2019. Over the past 20 years of continuous war, from the snowy passes of the Hindu Kush to the desert scrublands of Somalia, JSOC’s budget and autonomy have continuously grown, and so has the scope of its mission. Based out of a high-security compound inside Fort Bragg, it has become a covert military within the military.

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‘Consensual incest’ should be decriminalized, advocates say

Consensual incest advocates are rooting for an anonymous New York parent who wants to marry their own adult child.

Australian Richard Morris, who is pushing to change incest laws in about 60 countries, said he supports the legal push in Manhattan Federal Court and that such behavior between consenting adults “should not be criminalized.”

He and other advocates have launched about 130 petitions, mostly on change.org, seeking to change incest laws around the world. Most have received little support.

“We haven’t moved any mountains yet,” he told The Post.

Morris was inspired to fight for those in consenting incestual relationships, he said, after learning about a Scottish case in which a long-separated father and daughter were reunited, started an affair and were then criminally convicted.

Fighting for true “marriage equality” is “the right thing to do, isn’t it?” Morris said.

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Attorneys Are Mandated to Destroy Seth Rich Material by April 28 – Durham’s Office Won’t Mandate the Evidence Be Preserved – The American Public Has Not Seen This Info

Attorneys uncovered material related to the Seth Rich case from the Federal government. 

Yesterday they learned that their evidence related to the case must be destroyed by April 28th.  These attorneys contacted Attorney John Durham months ago and he won’t respond to their request asking that the evidence be maintained and not destroyed. 

Attorney Clevenger has been trying to get to the bottom of the Seth Rich case for years.  Month after month the DOJ denied it had any evidence that the DOJ or FBI looked into the Seth Rich matter.  Rich was a young Democrat employee who was shot and killed in Washington D.C. in the summer of 2016.  It is believed that Rich may have been murdered after providing DNC emails to WikiLeaks but his death was classified as a robbery.

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