Tag: pennsylvania

Missing 13-Year-Old Louisiana Girl Found Hidden in Box in Pittsburgh Basement, Suspects Arrested for Kidnapping, Trafficking, and Sexual Assault After Snapchat Grooming

A 13-year-old girl from East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, who went missing in October, has been recovered after being found hidden in a box covered by a sheet in the basement of a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home.

The teen was last seen at the Greyhound bus station in Baton Rouge after traveling from Columbus, Georgia.

Authorities traced her through online activity, discovering she had been in contact with 26-year-old Ki-Shawn Crumity via Snapchat.

Crumity allegedly lured her by promising to help her get adopted by a trusted adult.

The girl was transported from Baton Rouge to Georgia by 62-year-old Ronald Smith of New Orleans and another man, then placed on a bus to Pittsburgh via Washington, D.C.

At the D.C. bus station, she met a woman who offered assistance, and the group proceeded to Pittsburgh, where the teen stayed in the basement with Crumity and the woman.

According to investigators, Crumity provided the girl with edibles and alcohol and sexually assaulted her at least once or twice a day during the week she was there. He reportedly admitted to knowing she was a runaway and that his actions would get him in trouble.

On Friday, the FBI executed a search warrant with a SWAT team at the Davis Avenue home, discovering the girl in the basement box.

The Independent reports, “The girl later told authorities that being at the hospital after her rescue was ‘the safest she ever felt,’ according to the complaint.”

Crumity was arrested on-site and faces charges including trafficking in individuals, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, and selling or furnishing alcohol to a minor. He is being held without bond at Allegheny County Jail.

Smith was arrested in Columbus, Georgia, on charges of simple kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile.

Authorities indicated that additional arrests and charges are pending.

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Seven Pennsylvania Election Canvassers Charged For Fake Voter Registration Scheme In 2024 Election

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has announced charges against seven people in connection with a fraudulent voter registration scheme. The case serves as another example of vulnerabilities in the U.S. election systems and highlights why our system should not allow third parties to handle voter registration requests.  

According to police criminal complaints, workers who were hired to collect voter registration requests were given a quota to meet. Some workers told investigators they would be fired if they did not turn in enough requests, so they handed in bogus registrations, according to the complaints.

As the ground game for the 2024 presidential election picked up steam in the final weeks last year, election workers focused on swing states like Pennsylvania, with its 19 vital electoral votes. It was said the presidency could not be won without Pennsylvania, and the presidential winner did take Pennsylvania, with Donald Trump declaring victory soon after winning the state.  

For months before Election Day, the state was teaming with organized canvassers urging low-propensity voters to register to vote. As counties received loads of daily registration forms and worked to verify the requester’s identity, several counties noticed a troubling pattern.  

In Lancaster County, officials received around 2,500 voter registration requests in about a week that came in two large batches. County election workers noticed some had the same handwriting, many shared the same date, and some had other anomalies, as The Federalist reported last year.

“The county investigated and found 60 percent were confirmed as ‘fraudulent,’ according to Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams.” She indicated the fraudulent applications were part of a larger operation that began in June 2024.

Similar reports came out of neighboring Berks and York counties. Officials said the bogus registration requests were related to workers canvassing “at shopping centers, parking lots of grocery stores and businesses, sidewalks, and parks.”

Sunday took the case from the county district attorneys, and last week the Office of Attorney General charged Guillermo Sainz, 33, of Sierra Vista, Arizona, with three counts of Solicitation of Registration, that is, allegedly giving workers quotas to meet. Sainz “served as director of a company’s registration drive efforts in Pennsylvania,” Sunday’s statement reads. Each count carries a fine of at least $500 or “imprisonment for not less than one month” or both.

The criminal complaint names the company as Field and Media Corps. Sainz’s LinkedIn account showing his work history there has been removed.

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FBI announces massive indictment against 33 alleged members of drug trafficking organization

The FBI and Justice Department on Friday announced a massive indictment against over two dozen alleged members of the Weymouth Street Drug Trafficking Organization in Kensington, Pennsylvania.

The indictment accused 33 alleged gang members of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and dozens of related offenses. The organization was known for peddling and distributing fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the operation should serve as an example of law enforcement reclaiming violent corridors from gangs, and touted the years of collaboration between the bureau, Philadelphia Police Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Fox News reported.

“This takedown is how you safeguard American cities from coast to coast,” Patel said. “We have permanently removed a drug trafficking organization off the streets of Philadelphia.” 

The crew allegedly used violence to enforce its territory with shootings, murder and assaults. Despite the alleged use of violence, no substantial murder or shooting charges have been filed so far.

Prosecutors said the organization was allegedly led by 45-year-old Jose Antonio Morales Nieves, of Luquillo, Puerto Rico, known as ‘Flaco,’ Ramon Roman-Montanez, 40, of Philadelphia, known as ‘Viejo,’ and 33-year-old Nancy Rios-Valentin of Philadelphia.

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Radical Pennsylvania Bills Could Allow Public Funding Of Abortion Up To Birth

he Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee votes on a package of six bills Wednesday that will make it possible for pregnant Pennsylvania women to kill their unborn babies up to birth. It will also turn Pennsylvania into an abortion tourism destination, allowing women from states with stronger pro-life rules to kill their babies in Pennsylvania with no legal entanglements.   

Currently Pennsylvania bans abortion after 24 weeks (six months), though even then state law makes an exception “when the pregnancy poses a serious health risk or threatens the life” of the mother.

The main legislation is HB 1957, which aims to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution, making abortion a state constitutional right. HB 1957 would have to be approved by voters on a statewide ballot, and the committee hearing is the first step in that long process to amend the state constitution. First it must be approved in committee, then it moves to the House. The Pennsylvania House has a slight Democrat majority over Republicans, 102-101, so there is a good chance the constitutional amendment (and the entire six-bill package) will be approved by the committee and could pass the House.

The Republican-led Senate is less likely to approve the amendment, but if it did, the General Assembly would need to pass the proposed amendment again in the next legislative session, and it would then be placed on the ballot for statewide voter approval. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a strong and tacky proponent of abortion (often making cutesy posts about “protecting access”), would not be involved in the amendment process.

“They have no restriction on abortion in the language,” Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation Legislative Director Maria Gallagher told The Federalist, speaking of measures. “These bills are incredibly bad for women and babies in Pennsylvania; they would do everything from establish taxpayer funding of abortion to establishing late term abortions, to taking away the 24-hour waiting period for abortion, to taking away the counseling requirements for abortion. And what that would mean, is that women would not be told the risks of abortion or alternatives to abortion before an abortion takes place. This is really turning back the clock on protections for pregnant women and their babies.”

The bills would return Pennsylvania to the Kermit Gosnell era, providing legal protections for abortionists and late-term abortions without restrictions. Gosnell was an abortionist who killed babies after they were born in his filthy Philadelphia abortion mill.

The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on HB 1957, the constitutional change, at 10 a.m. Wednesday, then vote on the full package of bills at 11 a.m.

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Mom Placed on Child Abuse Registry for Letting 13-Year-Old Babysit

When single mom of two and home health aide Alice (a pseudonym) needed to run a brief errand, she tasked her 13-year-old brother (whom she is also the caretaker for) with babysitting her nearly 1-year-old child. For this, she was placed on the state’s child abuse registry.

Mariel Mussack, an attorney with Community Legal Services, told Alice’s story during testimony before the Pennsylvania House Children and Youth Committee in favor of H.B. 1873—known as Reasonable Independence for Children—on October 6. Similar bills have been passed in 11 states to date, clarifying that neglect is when a parent puts their child in obvious, serious danger, not anytime they simply take their eyes off of them. 

As in most of the other states, the Pennsylvania bill has bipartisan sponsors: Rep. Jeanne McNeill (D–Whitehall), who is majority chair of the committee, Rep. Rick Krajewski (D–Philadelphia), and Rep. David Zimmerman (R–Reinholds). Krajewski opened the hearing by noting that he’d grown up with a single mom who worked two or three jobs, and therefore, he had to get himself to school and help care for his younger sister. “It really does chill me to think that, in the eyes of our state statutes, that could be seen as neglect,” Krajewski said. 

Zimmerman recalled growing up on a farm. “We’d be gone all day,” he said. “And we really would look out for each other.” 

Peter Gray, a research professor of developmental psychology at Boston College and a co-founder with me of Let Grow, a nonprofit fighting for childhood independence, testified that an independent childhood helps inoculate kids against despair. 

“Over the last 60 years, we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge decline in children’s opportunities to play, roam, and generally engage in activities independent of adults,” Gray said, adding that “we’ve seen a gradual but overall huge increase in anxiety, depression, and…suicide among young people.” 

That’s due to a shrinking “internal locus of control,” the sense that you can handle things alone, said Gray. The way you build a robust internal locus of control is by being trusted to decide some things for yourself, like how to spend your time, and what you can handle on your own. “But,” Gray said, “we’re not allowing [kids] to do that.”

As constant adult supervision becomes the norm, more and more kids are being reported to the authorities. Diane Redleaf, a civil rights lawyer and Let Grow’s legal consultant, says that 37 percent of American children will be the subject of a hotline call—that number soars to 53 percent for African-American children.

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Terminally Ill Patients Would Be Able To Use Medical Marijuana In Pennsylvania Hospitals Under New Bipartisan Bill

Bipartisan Pennsylvania senators have introduced a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to use of medical marijuana in hospitals.

Similar to a law previously enacted in California, the Pennsylvania legislation from Sen. John Kane (D) and 17 bipartisan cosponsors aims to ensure that cannabis patients with severe illnesses such as cancer retain access to regulated products as an alternative treatment option.

“Hospitals are incredible places where patients receive top notch care,” Kane wrote in a cosponsorship memo in August. “They need guidance and legal protections to provide terminally ill patients with options to manage pain, while providing settings that support family and friends who are saying goodbye to a loved one.”

The policy that’s being proposed in the bill filed on Friday is known as “Ryan’s law,” a reference to Ryan Bartell, a cancer patient who inspired the legislation.

“During his treatments in California the hospital provided him with opioid medications that caused him to be sedated and unable to interact with family and friends,” Kane said. “Ryan and his family wanted to ensure that his remaining days could be filled with visits from his loved ones. So, Ryan moved to a hospital in the State of Washington where he used medical marijuana to manage his pain effectively and allow him to stay awake and alert to spend time with family and friends during hospital visits.”

“Ryan’s law would allow terminally ill patients to use non-smoking forms of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania hospitals,” he said. “Right now, the use of medical marijuana in hospitals is a gray area due to marijuana being a Scheduled I Narcotic, while also being legal for medicinal purposes in Pennsylvania.”

The four-page bill would amend the state’s existing medical cannabis law to make it so terminally ill patients can use non-smokeable marijuana products at hospitals, create storage requirements for the medicine and require health facilities to develop guidelines about the regulated use of cannabis for qualifying patients.

It also stipulates that a “health care facility is not required to provide a patient with a recommendation to use medical marijuana in compliance with this act or include medical marijuana in a patient’s discharge plan.”

Additionally, the measure says that, if the federal government initiates enforcement actions against a hospital regarding the cannabis policy or issues rules expressly prohibiting the medical marijuana allowance, the health facility is empowered to suspend the practice.

However, the proposed law “shall not be construed to permit a health care facility to prohibit patient use of medical marijuana due solely to the fact that cannabis is a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act or other Federal constraints on the use of medical marijuana that were in existence prior to the effective date of this paragraph,” it says.

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Report: PA Dem House Candidate Funneled Money Meant to Help Recovering Opioid Addicts to Bring Kids ‘LGBTQ+ Youth’ Center Offering ‘Medical Transition’ Seminars

According to a disturbing report from the Washington Free Beacon,  Democratic House candidate in Pennsylvania, Bob Harvie, funneled money away meant to help recovering opioid addicts and instead sent them to push an LGBTQ agenda.

According to the report, the funds went to transport minors to an “LGBTQ-youth” center that offers “medical transition” seminars for kids as young as 14.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

The Bucks County, Pa., Board of Commissioners, which Harvie chairs, approved a $13,500-grant in December to Planned Parenthood Keystone for “Expanding Services and Transportation” to the Rainbow Room, a local center that caters to gay and trans youth. The grant was used to transport high school students to Rainbow Room functions, the Delaware Valley Journal reported earlier this year. Its funding came from the county’s Opioid Settlement Fund, which is due to receive $70 million from drug distributors and pharmacy chains over the next 18 years.

Rainbow Room functions include seminars like “SEX ED NIGHT / M*STURB*TION,” which the center held in May 2024. A pamphlet advertising the event shows a photo of a woman’s hand massaging a watermelon designed to represent the female anatomy. In 2023, the Rainbow Room hosted a “Queer Prom,” where attendees as young as 13 were given goody bags with condoms, lubricant, and dental dams, used to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases during oral sex.

Earlier this week, meanwhile, the center held a “translating transition” seminar meant to teach kids as young as 14 “the basics of transgender identities, social transition, medical transition, and more!” In 2020, it hosted representatives of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Gender Clinic to discuss “transition issues for trans kids.” The hospital has faced intense scrutiny for providing hormone treatments like puberty blockers to young trans children, and for performing “gender-reassignment” procedures, more commonly known as sex-change operations.

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PA Governor Shapiro Says Kamala Harris ‘Is Going to Have to Answer’ for Covering Up Joe Biden’s Rapidly Declining Health

“Loyal” Kamala Harris, who hinted that Joe Biden was racist when she first threw her hat in the presidential race, slammed Biden in her new book and also discussed why she kept quiet about Joe’s obvious, rapidly declining health.

In an excerpt obtained by The Atlantic from her upcoming memoir, ‘107 Days,’ Harris calls Biden’s decision to run for a second term ‘reckless’ and says it should not have been “left to an individual’s ego” or “ambition.”

Writing about her decision not to try to convince Biden to drop out, Harris writes, “’It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness?”

“In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high.”

“This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

He typical word salad was not enough for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) who said Harris “is going to have to answer” for being honest with the American people and letting the public know about Biden’s fitness to serve in the White House again.

Shapiro joined Stephen A. Smith on Thursday.

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91-Year-Old Pennsylvania Woman With Dementia Loses $247,000 Home Over a $14,000 Tax Debt

In yet another example of what is colloquially known as home equity theft, a 91-year-old Pennsylvania woman has lost her home—and all of its worth—over a small tax debt. But the case just outside of Philadelphia is a particularly vivid illustration of a predatory and gruesome practice that the Supreme Court broadly ruled unconstitutional in 2023.

In 2020, Gloria Gaynor (not the disco queen) forewent her yearly trip to the tax office during COVID-19, recounted Jackie Davis, her daughter, to the local ABC affiliate for its excellent report on the story. Gaynor’s faculties noticeably declined around then, according to Davis. Even still, the Upper Darby resident returned in 2021 to pay her property taxes, her attorney said, under the impression that the pause in enforcement meant the government would apply her money toward the previous year. Instead, it went to 2021, and her debt from 2020 remained intact.

As these things go, it continued to grow. Her $3,500 bill ultimately reached $14,419 with penalties, interest, and fees. The government sold that debt to a real estate firm, the CJD Group, which then acquired the deed to the home.

The rub is that the home is worth over 17 times that. Yet Gaynor—who had nearly paid off the mortgage—will not see a dime in equity, despite that she owed the government $232,000 less than what the home is ultimately worth.

Regular Reason readers may be familiar with Tyler v. Hennepin County, the 2023 Supreme Court case that ruled home equity theft illegal. The plaintiff, 94-year-old Geraldine Tyler, fell behind on her property taxes after some unsettling neighborhood incidents prompted her move from her Minneapolis condominium to a retirement home. She subsequently struggled to pay both her rent and her property taxes. So the local government seized the condo, sold it for $40,000, and kept the $25,000 in excess of her tax debt, which included steep penalties, interest, and fees.

“A taxpayer who loses her $40,000 house to the State to fulfill a $15,000 tax debt has made a far greater contribution to the public fisc than she owed,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.”

It was a good decision. But Gaynor’s plight highlights one way governments are getting around it: by selling properties for the value of the debt—instead of putting it on the market or selling it at auction—so that there is no excess equity to speak of.

That doesn’t mean, of course, the equity doesn’t exist. It does. It is just now in the hands of a private company, as opposed to the elderly woman who spent the last 25 or so years paying off the mortgage, and nearly finishing.

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Pennsylvania Mayor Sparks Outrage After Saying He Is ‘Glad’ Charlie Kirk Is Dead

Bernville, Pennsylvania Mayor Shawn Raup-Konsavage (D) sparked outrage after posting on social media that he is “glad” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk is dead.

“This is what MAGA represents, This is what Trump lowered flags for. If this represents you then I don’t want to hear that you are offended that I’m glad he is gone,” the Bernville mayor posted.

This is not the first time that the mayor has enflamed controversy.

After the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, he posted, “Try harder.”

“That Trump post that he had posted, there was a lot of controversy with that in this town, a lot of hatred towards him after that,” Mark Rodriguez, a Bernville resident, said.

“Me, I really don’t care honestly, but it’s sad when everybody judges this man based on his opinion. He’s done great things for this town; he’s helped a lot and with all this going on it seems like he just shelters himself now,” Rodriguez continued.

Wayne Lesher, the Bernville council vice president, said, “He said what he wanted to on his own Facebook page which is freedom of speech and all that, but I certainly don’t agree with it and I think what he said was terrible. You’re celebrating the death of somebody; that’s nothing to celebrate.”

“It does have consequences. Several people have lost their jobs because of what they said, and you have freedom of speech to say what you want but you can pay for it too,” Lesher continued.

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