A woman who accused her ex of a crime during a bitter divorce has been indicted on charges of making false statements to NASA’s Office of Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission.
Summer Worden, 44, claimed last year that her famous and estranged astronaut wife Anne McClain had improperly accessed Worden’s bank account while in outer space. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/air-force-officer-accuses-astronaut-ex-partner-ashe-schow">reported</a> at the time, “Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer, notified the Federal Trade Commission and filed a complaint with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Inspector General. McClain, bank records showed, had accessed the bank account while preparing for NASA’s first all-female spacewalk aboard the International Space Station.”
McClain’s attorney said the astronaut was doing her regular duty managing the couple’s finances and that at no time was she told by Worden to stop accessing that particular account.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas appears to agree with McClain after an investigation into Worden’s claims. U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick issued <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/woman-charged-falsely-claiming-officer-accessed-her-bank-account-international-space">a press release</a> announcing Worden was indicted for lying to federal authorities:
<blockquote>According to the indictment, Worden maintained multiple bank accounts at USAA Federal Savings Bank. She allegedly shared access to her online accounts with a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army on detail to NASA’s Johnson Space Center who had access until at least Jan. 31, 2019.
The indictment alleges Worden filed a complaint with the FTC, alleging the officer had improperly accessed her bank account. She claimed she had opened a new account in September 2018 and reset her login credentials in order to prevent the individual from accessing her accounts, according to the charges. However, the indictment alleges she actually opened the account in April 2018 and did not change her login credentials until January 2019.
The indictment charges Worden with making false statements on two occasions. She allegedly filed the false complaint March 19, 2019, with the FTC and later made a false statement in an interview with NASA-OIG July 22, 2019.</blockquote>
Worden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/space-crime-allegation-indictment.html">told</a> The New York Times that she accidentally gave the wrong date for when she opened the account but later gave federal authorities the correct one. She also told the outlet that she meant to change her login credentials when she created the account and still felt it was wrong for McClain to access their finances during their divorce.
The couple was married in 2014 and filed for divorce in 2018. Worden had a son the year before she met McClain, and the astronaut requested shared parenting rights for the child during the divorce because she “was there for his first steps and first words” and that she shared &#8216;a very healthy and deep parental relationship&#8217; with the boy.”
McClain told the Times through her attorney, Rusty Hardin, that she only accessed Worden’s account to maintain their finances as she had always done and to ensure there was enough money in the account to care for the child. She said Worden never told her to stop accessing the account.
If convicted, Worden faces up to five years in prison for each of the two counts with which she was charged and a maximum fine of up to $250,000.
Worden&#8217;s allegations were the first accusation that a crime had taken place in outer space.

Astronaut

She Accused Her Astronaut Ex Of Hacking Into Her Bank Account. Federal Prosecutors Now Say She Lied.

Crime

false accusations

NASA

It was January 27 when 11-year-old Gannon Stauch disappeared from his Colorado Springs home. He missed school that day, and his stepmother, Letecia Stauch, reported him missing shortly before 7 p.m. that night
Letecia’s story about what happened the day Gannon disappeared kept changing, and despite her interviews with the media where she denied she had anything to do with the little boy’s disappearance, she was arrested a month after she reported him missing and charged with his murder.
Letecia initially said that Gannon left their home around 3:15 p.m. on the day he disappeared to walk to his friend’s house, but when he didn’t come home for two hours, she reported him missing, The Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/colorado-cops-say-they-dont-think-missing-11-year-old-gannon-stauch-was-abducted">reported</a>. A neighbor would later tell police his home-security video showed Letecia and Gannon leaving their family home that morning and Letecia returning home alone hours later.
Two days after she reported Gannon missing, Letecia told investigators that a man named Eguardo held her at gunpoint, raped her, and apparently hit her on the head so she blacked out the day Gannon disappeared, according to an arrest affidavit first <a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/04/03/letecia-stauch-gannon-murder-arrest-affidavit-leaked/">reported</a> by CBS Denver. She suggested this same man abducted Gannon. On the day Leticia made this new claim, she was two hours late to meet with investigators and brought written notes. Investigators asked Leticia to take a sexual assault forensic exam, but she refused. Surveillance video from a neighbor also showed no one entering the Stauch home at the time she claimed to have been attacked. More from CBS Denver:
Between Jan. 25-28, investigators determined Letecia viewed websites associated with searching for a job in Florida and California. Letecia’s Google search history on Jan. 25 includes, “I’m over doing all the work for my step kids and their mom doesn’t help,” and “one day people will wish they treated you differently.”
On her cell phone, investigators said Letecia searched, “are there any free money to move away from bad situation.” On the morning of Jan. 27, investigators said Letecia searched on Google, “my son burned the carpet how do I fix it?”
In her discussion with Al [Gannon’s father], Letecia, without prompt, provided explanations for why blood would be found on Gannon’s bedroom wall along with an alibi for why she was in the area where the particleboard was recovered. Investigators said information about blood evidence in the home and on the particleboard had not been released publicly at that time.
A search of court records in North Carolina reveals Letecia has a criminal past. Investigators said she was convicted after a trial for communicating threats, a misdemeanor. She was also sentenced to 45 days confinement and 18 months of probation for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Al Stauch is a member of the National Guard and was deployed between January 25 and 28.
Leticia also gave investigators reasons why Gannon’s blood would be found in the home and garage, saying he cut his foot in the garage on Al’s woodworking tools.
In reality, police wrote in their affidavit, it is believed that hours before she reported him missing, Leticia killed Gannon in his bedroom, stuffed his body into her car, and then waited until the next morning to dump his body off the side of a highway. His remains were found on March 18 – after Leticia was arrested and charged with his murder – under an overpass in Florida, though police are unsure how he ended up there.
At a press conference announcing the charges against Leticia, Al and Gannon’s biological mother, Landen Hiott, expressed a desire for justice to be served.
“Justice will be served because my boy does not deserve this,” Hiott said, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/letecia-stauch-stepmom-of-missing-boy-gannon-stauch-arrested-on-suspicion-of-murder-reports-say">according to</a> The Daily Beast. “She will pay 100 percent for this thing that she did,” Hiott added, “because I want to live on this Earth knowing that justice will be served for my little boy.”
Al read a statement during the press conference that said:  “The person who committed this heinous, horrible crime is one that I gave more to anyone else on this planet, and that is a burden that I will carry with me for a very long time.”

Leticia Stauch

She Reported She Was Raped By Her Step-Son’s Kidnapper. It Turns Out She Actually Killed The Boy.

Children

Murder

Billy McFarland, the man behind the infamous “Fyre Festival” failure and fraud, is working on a new project while in prison and insists this one isn’t a scam.
McFarland, in <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/04/03/fyre-fests-billy-mcfarland-reveals-new-project-from-prison-swears-its-no-scam/">an exclusive interview</a> with The New York Post, said prison had changed him and that now that coronavirus is keeping people home – and away from federal prisons – he has started a crowd-funding endeavor to help other inmates gain the ability to call their loved ones during the outbreak.
“Coronavirus is driving families apart . . . and visits are canceled across every federal prison,” McFarland told the Post. “I’m launching an initiative called Project-315 to bring together and connect in-need inmates and their families who are affected by coronavirus. We’re going to pay for calls for as many incarcerated people across the country as possible.”
Speaking with the Post on the phone from Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Lisbon, Ohio, McFarland said he was a changed man since his days selling a fantasy island-music experience to the wealthy.
“I see the important things in life . . . way more” he told the Post. “I got lost during Fyre — thinking that I had to make it work at all costs. I realize how immature and wrong that thought process was. I’ve grown up in jail.”
“There’s no question I totally messed up. It really makes me sick,” he added.
As the Post reported, McFarland, 28, “was <a href="https://pagesix.com/2018/10/11/fyre-festival-organizer-billy-mcfarland-sentenced-to-six-years-in-prison/?_ga=2.117360070.1902940981.1585583735-1514088245.1567529658">sentenced to six years in prison</a> and three years’ probation for wire fraud in relation to his ill-fated April 2017 Bahamas-based music Fyre Festival.” He was also ordered to pay $26 million in restitution to those he hurt with the Fyre Festival.
Instead of focusing on restitution, it appears he’s now looking to raise money to pay for inmates’ $3.15 standard cost for each 15-minute phone call to and from the prison. He’s raising that money on <a href="https://www.project-315.com/">Project-315.com</a> and insists this isn’t a scam.
“It’s totally reasonable that people would think this is a scam. The good thing is, this isn’t for me — it’s for the families of inmates, who are suffering because of what their loved ones did,” he told the Post, adding that he has friends “contributing off the bat” to “help the first few thousand families.”
“I have a small business team of four or five people, a mix of tech and entertainment people” helping as well, none of whom were involved in the Fyre festival.
“All the money that’s coming in is going directly to the initiative,” he added. “I’m not on any of the bank accounts or documents and I don’t have access to any of the funds.”
It does not appear as though the Post verified that McFarland was not connected to the bank accounts or documents.
McFarland also told the Post he still wants to make something like Fyre Festival happen.
“I want to focus on the theme of Magnises [the now-defunct credit card company he founded] and Fyre, which was to bring people together and create value through that,” he told the Post.
Those who watched either of the Fyre Festival documentaries will recall the credit card company was geared toward wealthy millennials in big cities who would use the exclusive card to gain perks.
If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone.

Billy McFarland

The Fyre Festival Guy Is Starting A New Project Behind Bars, Insists It’s Not A Scam

Fyre Festival

Federal prosecutors say that an engineer deliberately derailed a train on Tuesday near the Port of Los Angeles in an attempt to crash it into the USNS Mercy, a U.S. Military hospital ship that was deployed to the area to assist hospitals that may become overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.
&#8220;[The 44-year-old suspect from] San Pedro, was charged with deliberately wrecking a train during the incident Tuesday, which lead to a derailment and fuel leak, according to charges,&#8221; The Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-01/man-charged-derailing-train-hospital-ship-mercy">reported</a>. &#8220;Prosecutors allege that [the suspect] derailed the train and deliberately crashed through barriers designed to stop engines before grinding to a halt 250 yards from the Mercy.&#8221;
According to an affidavit, the suspect allegedly told a California Highway Patrol officer, &#8220;You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on here. Now they will.&#8221;
The CHP officer witnessed the incident and took the suspect into custody as the suspected tried to run from the scene.
The CHP officer reported seeing “the train smash into a concrete barrier at the end of the track, smash into a steel barrier, smash into a chain-link fence, slide through a parking lot, slide across another lot filled with gravel, and smash into a second chain-link fence.”
The Department of Justice&#8217;s U.S. Attorney’s Office <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/train-operator-port-los-angeles-charged-derailing-locomotive-near-us-navy-s-hospital">said</a> in a statement:
<blockquote>In his first interview with the Los Angeles Port Police, [the suspect] acknowledged that he “did it,” saying that he was suspicious of the Mercy and believing it had an alternate purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover, the affidavit states. [The suspect] stated that he acted alone and had not pre-planned the attempted attack. While admitting to intentionally derailing and crashing the train, he said he knew it would bring media attention and “people could see for themselves,” referring to the Mercy, according to the affidavit.
In a second interview with FBI agents, [the suspect] stated that “he did it out of the desire to ‘wake people up,’” according to the affidavit. “[The suspect] stated that he thought that the U.S.N.S. Mercy was suspicious and did not believe ‘the ship is what they say it’s for.’”
The Los Angeles Port Police reviewed video recorded from the locomotive’s cab, according to the affidavit. One video shows the train clearly moving at a high rate of speed before crashing through various barriers and coming into close proximity to three occupied vehicles. A second video shows [the suspect] in the cab holding a lighted flare.
[The suspect] was held overnight on local charges, and he was turned over to FBI agents this morning. [The suspect] is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court this afternoon.</blockquote>
The press release said that if convicted, the suspect could face up to 20 years in federal prison.
The ship departed San Diego for Los Angeles over a week ago and was sent there to help one of the nation&#8217;s largest cities deal with a potential massive surge in coronavirus cases.
&#8220;This global crisis demands whole-of-government response, and we are ready to support,” <a href="https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=112443">said</a> Capt. John Rotruck, Mercy’s Military Treatment Facility commanding officer. “Mercy brings a team of medical professionals, medical equipment, and supplies, all of which will act, in essence, as a ‘relief valve’ for local civilian hospitals in Los Angeles so that local health professionals can better focus on COVID-19 cases. We will use our agility and responsiveness as an afloat Medical Treatment Facility to do what the country asks, and bring relief where we are needed most.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a>: Train engineer arrested on terrorism charges after allegedly running a locomotive off the tracks in an attempt to hit USNS Mercy. The Mercy is docked in the Port of LA to ease crowding at local hospitals during the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID%E3%83%BC19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVIDー19</a> pandemic. <a href="https://twitter.com/Stu_Mundel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Stu_Mundel</a> reports from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sky9?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Sky9</a> <a href="https://t.co/IYnDUuQDat">pic.twitter.com/IYnDUuQDat</a>
&mdash; Mike Rogers (@MikeRogersTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeRogersTV/status/1245492282100334592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

Major Cities In The U.S. Adjust To Restrictive Coronavirus Measures

Engineer Derails Train While Trying To Crash Into USNS Mercy, Report Says

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Los Angeles

USNS Mercy

As part of a statewide New York effort, fifty prisoners, including child sex offenders, were released in Monroe County due to apparent coronavirus concerns, though it&#8217;s unclear if the jail has had any confirmed positive COVID-19 tests.
&#8220;Eight registered sex offenders have been released from the Monroe County Jail as part of a statewide order coming from The Department of Corrections and Community Services– or DOCCS,&#8221; <a href="https://www.wivb.com/news/level-3-sex-offenders-among-inmates-released-from-monroe-county-jail/">WIVB</a> reported Sunday.
According to the Monroe County Sheriffs&#8217; Office, more than 50 inmates were released Saturday from the county jail, nine of whom were dumped at a local Holiday Inn Express in the town of Greece.
&#8220;Among the inmates known to be staying at the Holiday Inn Express are four registered sex offenders,&#8221; the WIVB report said. &#8220;Three of whom are registered as level 3 sex offenders and are deemed by New York courts as most likely to re-offend. All three of the level 3 sex offenders staying at the Holiday Inn Express have been convicted for the rape of minors.&#8221;
DOCCS apparently ordered a release of &#8220;low-level technical parole violators&#8221; over COVID-19 concerns, though, again, it remains unclear if there were even any confirmed cases within the jail.
Greece Chief of Police Patrick Phelan was bewildered over the move.
“It doesn’t make any sense,&#8221; the police chief said. &#8220;If you could present an argument to me that makes sense, I’m willing to listen. But this doesn’t make any sense.&#8221;
“So you have a violent criminal who’s done time in state prison who’s been given the chance of parole, and not followed the conditions of their parole,&#8221; Phelan explained. &#8220;That’s who you’re talking about right now.&#8221;
The police chief claims he was not even so much as notified in advance about the release, which clearly would have been useful information for law enforcement officers working to keep their community safe.
“We weren’t told by anyone,” he said. “I think good practice would be if you’re going to release convicted felons. Some of them very violent some of those level 3 sex offenders, You might want to give law enforcement the heads up.”
The DOCCS responded in a statement, defending their decision as necessary in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak.
“This significant action is being taken in response to a growing number of COVID-19 cases in local jails over the past few days and weeks,&#8221; the statement reads. &#8220;Our top priority remains the public health and safety of New Yorkers during this global public health emergency and this measure will further protect a vulnerable population from contracting and transmitting this infectious disease.”
Democrats in New York have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-bail-reform-woman-involved-in-anti-semitic-attack-arrested-released-for-3-crimes-in-5-days">criticized</a> this past year over their increasing soft stance on criminals, even by folks on the Left.
For example, so-called &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disaster-dems-consider-changes-to-ny-bail-reform-just-one-week-after-implementation">bail reform</a>&#8221; apparently led to a woman charged with an anti-Semitic attack to be arrested and released three times in five days. In another case, a man charged with second degree manslaughter in connection to the murder of a 29-year-old Albany woman was released from jail after the judge overseeing the case reportedly claimed Democrats’ new “bail reform” legislation no longer allows her to keep the charged party in custody.

Open door to prison cell

CORONAVIRUS JAILBREAK: NY Releases Child Sex Offenders, Dumps Them In Local Hotel

corona

New York

Local Colorado law enforcement agencies have reportedly seen an uptick in people impersonating police officers and pulling drivers over during the state&#8217;s lockdown order to combat the coronavirus, which originated in China.
KDVR highlighted three <a href="https://kdvr.com/news/local/drivers-funneled-through-roadblock-by-police-impostors-during-covid-19-pandemic/">reported</a> instances of alleged police impersonators pulling drivers over:
<ul>
<li>On March 27, several residents reported in Greeley that police pulled them over through a roadblock and warned them about violating &#8220;the COVID-19 law.&#8221; Colorado State Troopers, Greeley police, and Weld County police all said that none of their officers were involved in the incident.</li>
<li>On March 27, a woman in Erie said that she was pulled over by a black vehicle with flashing lights. The woman says she was told to return home and that the man who pulled her over followed her home. Erie police and Boulder police said that none of their officers were involved.</li>
<li>On March 25, a woman was pulled over late at night by a man driving a dark colored car in Aurora and who was not wearing any badges or a name tag. The woman said that the man questioned her about why she was out during the Stay-at-Home order. Aurora police later said that their officers are not pulling anyone over to inquire about why drivers are out on the roads.</li>
</ul>
Crystal McCoy, Public Information Officer with the Aurora Police Department, told KDVR, “It’s frightening. It’s very frightening because we don’t really know what their intentions are. We don’t know who they are. We realize it’s scary for the community and it’s also very alarming for us.”
KDVR added that Colorado law enforcement officials indicated that if people believe that they are in a similar situation that they should acknowledge the stop by activating their hazard lights but that they should call 911 and drive to the nearest police or fire station.
Police departments in other states have also warned about police impersonators trying to pull people over during the coronavirus outbreak.
The Travis County Sheriff&#8217;s Office in Texas <a href="https://www.tcsheriff.org/about/press-releases/2020/600-tcso-warns-of-false-traffic-stops-regarding-stay-home-work-safe-ordinance">warned</a> last week of police impersonators, writing in statement:
<blockquote>The Travis County Sheriff’s Office has received numerous complaints from people who reported that a large, unmarked black SUV like a Tahoe or Escalade pulled them over this morning. In each report, the caller said a male walked to the back bumper of their vehicle and refused to get any closer. The man claimed to be a Travis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy and told the drivers to go home, citing the Stay Home/Work Safe Ordinance. When the drivers attempted to present paperwork identifying themselves as essential employees along with their driver’s licenses, the man refused to look at the documents and ordered the drivers to go home immediately.
TCSO wants the public to know that traffic stops are conducted by fully marked units. Deputies will be wearing their uniform, will come to the window and will accept identification. If anyone is concerned they are being pursued by someone who may not be a legitimate peace officer, they are advised to put their hazard lights on so the officer will know they’re complying, then call 911 to verify that a legitimate traffic stop is happening.
Anyone who may have been stopped by this vehicle today is encouraged to call TCSO and report it.</blockquote>
WFRV in Wisconsin <a href="https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/marinette-co-investigating-after-police-impersonator-stops-driver-to-check-safer-at-home-permit/">reported</a> last week: &#8220;The Marinette County Sheriff’s Office is reminding the public law enforcement will not be doing compliance checks as part of Governor Tony Evers’ Safer at Home order after receiving a report of a police impersonator pulled someone over in Wausaukee Wednesday morning.&#8221;

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Colorado Police Departments See Uptick In Police Impersonators Pulling Over Drivers During Coronavirus Shutdown

Colorado

Police

A sheriff in Florida is having his nightmare ended after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that alleged the sheriff was indifferent to an alleged “sex ring” involving some of his deputies having consensual sex with a woman in her home.
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan was sued by two sisters who alleged that “because the sheriff took no action to curb their sexual activities, two then-deputies, Walter Thomas and Mark Smith, became emboldened enough to sexually abuse the then-juvenile plaintiffs,” the Pensacola News Journal <a href="https://amp.pnj.com/amp/5078013002?__twitter_impression=true">reported</a>.
The outlet went on to report that Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson “eviscerated the claims in a 25-page order last week and dismissed both cases.”
More from the News Journal:
<blockquote>The judge noted that in the thousands of pages of filings from the plaintiffs&#8217; attorney, Joe Zarzaur, it was difficult to determine what information was relevant, irrelevant, necessary and unnecessarily salacious.
Vinson wrote that Zarzaur took &#8220;unsubstantiated liberties&#8221; with the facts of the case, &#8220;so much so that many of the asserted &#8216;facts&#8217; don&#8217;t match — and are sometimes directly contradicted by — his own exhibits.&#8221;
Zarzaur told the News Journal that he respects the court&#8217;s decisions, and that he and his clients are weighing their options on cases that are still pending at the state level.</blockquote>
Morgan, of course, denied the allegations, and the News Journal noted that proving “deliberate indifference” is incredibly difficult, as “an individual has to exhibit what is essentially a reckless disregard for consequences.”
The allegations against the sheriff boiled down to an accusation that because he knew multiple detectives were having consensual sex with former jail employee Leah Manning, the sheriff should have known those officers would assault underage girls.
“The plaintiffs posited that when a sheriff ‘tacitly allows’ his deputies to have sex on duty without consequence, ‘it was foreseeable that bad deputies might &#8216;push the envelope&#8217; of what they could get away with. The fact that many deputies were having sex on duty with the then-teenage (plaintiffs&#8217;) mother so frequently makes it very foreseeable that the deputies would eventually try to sexually assault (plaintiffs)’&#8221; the News Journal reported.
Judge Vinson, however, agreed with Morgan’s defense attorneys.
&#8220;Can it be seriously maintained that it was &#8216;very foreseeable&#8217; that a deputy’s consensual sex with the mother would lead him to molest her minor child?&#8221; the judge asked in his ruling. &#8220;Child molestation is not a reasonably anticipated outgrowth of consensual adult sex.&#8221;
Vinson further noted that there was no evidence Morgan even knew Manning had children.
&#8220;Obviously, Sheriff Morgan cannot have been subjectively aware of (and disregarded) a threat to a child he didn’t know existed,&#8221; Vinson wrote.
The deputies who had sex with Manning were accused of molesting the teenage girls. One of the former deputies, Smith, was acquitted on charges that he touched one of the girls while she slept. The other deputy, Thomas, was convicted of sexually abusing one of the teenage girls – at the mother and stepfather’s request and “with their participation,” the News Journal reported. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his crimes.

police officers

A Sheriff Was Accused Of Ignoring A ‘Sex Ring.’ A Judge Just ‘Eviscerated’ The Claims.

A 26-year-old man&#8217;s coronavirus-themed social media video, where he filmed himself licking various deodorants in a Missouri Walmart, has landed him an arrest and a charge of terrorist threat.
In the video that was taped on March 11, Cody Lee Pfister asks viewers, &#8220;Who&#8217;s scared of coronavirus?&#8221; before licking deodorant sticks out for purchase.
Pfister was charged by the Warren County Prosecuting Attorney&#8217;s Office with a terrorist threat in the second degree, according to the <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/coronavirus/man-charged-after-police-say-he-licked-items-at-warrenton/article_2e9d0fc7-b21a-5ebc-a8e9-cc181f3f3934.html">St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a>.
<div class="asset-breakout-container ">
&#8220;Pfister &#8216;knowingly caused a false belief or fear that a condition involving danger to life existed,&#8217; court documents state, adding that he acted &#8216;with reckless disregard of the risk causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion&#8217; of Walmart,&#8221; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday.
The 26-year-year reportedly has a healthy rap sheet, previously pleaded guilty to burglary and stealing a firearm in 2013, and pleaded guilty to a 2016 charge of disorderly conduct. Moreover, &#8220;Two years later, Pfister pleaded guilty in circuit court to driving while intoxicated, and was given probation,&#8221; the report added. &#8220;Pfister violated probation and was given jail time, according to court records.&#8221;
With fears over the China-originated coronavirus, or COVID-19, taking centerstage in the United States, there have been numerous reports of so-called &#8220;coronavirus challenges&#8221; and mischief sparked by the virus.
For example, a 21-year-old TikTok “influencer” recently filmed himself licking a public toilet bowl as part of a “coronavirus challenge.&#8221;
The influencer, known to the public as &#8220;Larz,&#8221; said this week that he has tested positive for COVID-19, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/21-year-old-influencer-licks-toilet-seat-to-challenge-coronavirus-now-he-says-hes-got-it">The Daily Wire</a> noted:
<blockquote>Earlier this month, “Larz” filmed himself walking into a public restroom, squatting next to a toilet bowl and licking it twice, as <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11252415/tiktok-user-who-licked-toilet-seat-in-vile-coronavirus-challenge-now-has-killer-bug-piers-morgan-says/?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=sunmaintwitter&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1585145305">The Sun</a> reported. <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8150945/Influencer-hospital-coronavirus-just-days-posting-video-licking-toilet.html">The Daily Mail</a> added that “Larz” tweeted, then deleted, “I tested positive for Coronavirus.” The Daily Mail noted, “The post, which includes a video of him languishing in a hospital bed is a far cry from the foul video he posted five days ago of him licking a public toilet seat, which was captioned: ‘RT (retweet) to spread awareness for the Coronavirus.’”</blockquote>
Moreover, a man who coughed on a Wegmans worker and told them he had coronavirus was recently charged with terrorist threat, too.
&#8220;A man is facing charges after <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" href="https://bit.ly/2UiSF23" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a">coughing on a Wegmans employee in New Jersey and claiming he had the coronavirus</a>, authorities said,&#8221; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/25/new-jersey-man-coughs-wegmans-employee-said-he-had-coronavirus/5076707002/">USA Today</a> reported Wednesday. &#8220;George Falcone, 50, of Freehold Township, was charged with making terroristic threats, harassment and obstruction after officials said he refused to identify himself or provide identification to township police for more than 40 minutes, according to a news release from the state Attorney General&#8217;s Office.&#8221;
&#8220;Gov. Phil Murphy, who mentioned the incident at a news conference Tuesday, said police responded to a call after a man was in a confrontation with a female employee of the supermarket chain and then &#8216;coughed on the woman and told her after doing so that he had the coronavirus,'&#8221; the report added.
Falcone reportedly purposefully coughed on the employee after she told the shopper to step back further from the prepared foods.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/21-year-old-influencer-licks-toilet-seat-to-challenge-coronavirus-now-he-says-hes-got-it">21-Year-Old ‘Influencer’ Licks Toilet Seat To Challenge Coronavirus. Now He Says He’s Got It.</a>
</div>

Cody Pfister

Walmart Coronavirus ‘Licker’ Arrested, Charged With Terrorist Threat

Walmart

Attorney General William Barr announced during a press conference on Monday that the Department of Justice is cracking down on people who are hoarding critical medical supplies and engaging in price gouging.
&#8220;At the department of justice we&#8217;re working hard to protect the health and safety of our personnel, while at the same time, keeping our enforcement efforts at full throttle,&#8221; Barr said. &#8220;So I would like to thank all of my colleagues and law enforcement, not just those at the federal level, but of all of the state and local partners, the police officers, the sheriff&#8217;s deputies, who are protecting and serving their communities are often at great risk to themselves.&#8221;
&#8220;What I would like to do here is start with a few remarks about the order that the president mentioned,&#8221; Barr continued. &#8220;To ensure the availability of critical medical and health supplies from warding and price gouging. On March 18th, the president issued Executive Order 13909 with the Defense Production Act with the respect to the health and medical resources needed to respond to spread of COVID-19 including PPE and ventilators.&#8221;
&#8220;We have started to see some evidence of potential hoarding and price gouging,&#8221; Barr continued. &#8220;So earlier today the president signed a second Executive Order providing the authority to address if it becomes necessary, hoarding that threatens the supply of those necessary health and medical resources.&#8221;
&#8220;Under section 102 of the Defense Production Act, the president has authorized to prohibit the hoarding of needed resources by designating those materials as scarce or as materials who supply would be threatened by persons accumulating excessive amounts,&#8221; Barr continued. &#8220;Once specific materials are so designated, persons are prohibited from accumulating those items in excess of reasonable, personal or business needs, or for the purpose of selling them in excess of prevailing market prices.&#8221;
Barr assured people who had stocked up on large amounts of toilet paper that they were not the people that the administration was looking to crackdown on.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Attorney General Bill Barr announces crackdown on price gouging and hoarding of critical medical supplies, going after the monsters who would do this at a time of crisis. <a href="https://t.co/wHUxw6aBrh">pic.twitter.com/wHUxw6aBrh</a>
&mdash; (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1242219351211528193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The White House released a statement on actions that the administration was taking to prevent, stop, and punish those who are engaging in hoarding and price gouging of critical medical supplies:
<blockquote>PREVENTING AND PUNISHING HOARDING AND FRAUD: President Trump is taking action to prevent the hoarding and price gouging of critical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus.
<ul>
<li>President Trump is signing an Executive Order providing the authority to address, if necessary, hoarding that threatens the supply of necessary health and medical resources.
<ul>
<li>This includes the action of hoarding unnecessary quantities of items for the purpose of selling them above the fair market value.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>This action is authorized under the Defense Production Act, which allows the President to prohibit the hoarding of needed resources.</li>
<li>To implement the order, the President has delegated to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the authority to designate scarce resources or resources the supply of which would be threatened by hoarding.</li>
<li>The Department of Justice (DOJ) will work with HHS to enforce the anti-hoarding provisions of the order in cases where hoarding may be impeding the supply of health and medical resources needed to combat the spread of the coronavirus.</li>
<li>Additionally, DOJ is prioritizing the detection, investigation, and prosecution of fraudulent activity and price gouging related to medical resources needed to respond to the coronavirus.</li>
</ul>
PROTECTING CRITICAL MEDICAL SUPPLIES: This action will help ensure that hospitals, first-responders, and doctors receive sufficient supplies of critical medical equipment.
<ul>
<li>President Trump is bringing to bear every resource, power, and authority necessary to defeat the coronavirus.</li>
<li>Nationwide, our medical professionals and first responders are in need of critical medical equipment to fight the coronavirus.</li>
<li>Hoarding and price gouging could threaten the supply of critical health and medical resources, such as personal protective equipment and sanitizing and disinfecting products.</li>
<li>By limiting access to these critical resources, those who engage in hoarding and price gouging could put both our medical workers and the health of the American people at risk.</li>
<li>All Americans must come together to help one another during this time and help combat the outbreak.</li>
</ul>
SECURING VITAL RESOURCES: Today’s action builds on the extraordinary measures that the President has already taken to ensure that America has the resources it needs to fight the virus.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>President Trump and his Administration have taken extraordinary steps to help States, hospitals, frontline healthcare workers, and first responders procure the equipment they need.</li>
<li>The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is sending respirators, surgical masks, face shields, and gloves to places they are needed most.</li>
<li>President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act, giving HHS the authority to allocate critical resources.</li>
<li>The Trump Administration has worked with major American manufacturers to massively increase production of certain medical supplies, such as ventilators and masks.</li>
<li>The Administration has also partnered with the private sector to increase the speed and availability of diagnostic tests, implement new therapeutics, and find a vaccine.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-BRIEFING

AG Barr Announces Crackdown On Hoarding, Price Gouging Critical Medical Supplies

William Barr

An internal memo detailing changes to Philadelphia Police Department protocols in the face of the coronavirus crisis has now gone viral, and the response has compelled the police commissioner to issue a &#8220;clarification.&#8221;
Among the outlets that have reported on the city&#8217;s new protocols is the Philadelphia Inquirer, which published the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6811943-Outlaw-Memo.html">internal memo</a> listing the now arrest-free non-violent crimes. &#8220;One day after Philadelphia courts closed until April 1 to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw notified commanders Tuesday that police will be delaying arrests for nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses, theft, and prostitution,&#8221; the Inquirer reported.
&#8220;The City of Philadelphia has updated its posture concerning the Covid-19 pandemic,&#8221; Outlaw&#8217;s memo reads. &#8220;Beginning today (March 17, 2020), the City is suspending all public-facing services. To that end, most municipal buildings will be closed to the public, as the City tries to limit the potential for exposure to Covid-19. Patrol Districts will remain open to the public. In addition, beginning Wednesday, March 18, 2020, only essential employees will be required to come in to work. If you have questions about who is essential and non-essential, please consult with your supervisor.&#8221;
The commissioner then details the Police Department&#8217;s &#8220;modifications to several of our existing protocols,&#8221; including a list of offenses that will now be addressed via arrest warrant by the officer on the scene rather than actual arrest:
Effective Today (March 17, 2020), during the 4pm x 12am tour, arrests for the following offenses will be effectuated via Arrest Warrant:
<ul>
<li>All Narcotics Offenses</li>
<li>Theft from persons</li>
<li>Retail Theft</li>
<li>Theft from auto</li>
<li>Burglary</li>
<li>Vandalism</li>
<li>All Bench warrants</li>
<li>Stolen auto</li>
<li>Economic crime (bad checks, fraud)</li>
<li>Prostitution</li>
</ul>
The memo also explains the arrest warrant process:
<ul>
<li>Officers who encounter persons who would ordinarily be arrested for these offenses, and processed at a detective division immediately following arrest, will adhere to the following procedures:</li>
<li>Temporarily detain the offender for the length of time required to confirm identity (this may require the deployment of mobile fingerprint scanners).</li>
<li>Prepare all relevant paperwork (e.g., 75-48, 75-48A, etc.).</li>
<li>Release offender.</li>
<li>Submit all paperwork to the detective division of occurrence.</li>
<li>The assigned detective will prepare an arrest affidavit and submit to DACU for review. If charges are approved, the assigned detective will obtain an Arrest Warrant. The warrant will be served at a later time, as conditions dictate.</li>
</ul>
Outlaw underscores in the memo that while the above list of offenses should generally be handled with arrest warrants, officers may determine that physical arrest is required in the interest of public safety:
If an officer believes that releasing the offender would pose a threat to public safety, the officer will notify a supervisor, who will review the totality of the circumstances and utilize discretion, in the interest of public safety, in determining the appropriate course of action.
Amid reports on the new policy, Outlaw issued a &#8220;clarification&#8221; Tuesday emphasizing that &#8220;the Philadelphia Police Department is not turning a blind eye to crime&#8221;:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Clarification of PPD&#39;s temporary response model in light of Covid-19 <a href="https://t.co/8eMiUb17qD">pic.twitter.com/8eMiUb17qD</a>
&mdash; Danielle M. Outlaw (@PPDCommish) <a href="https://twitter.com/PPDCommish/status/1240132652067422208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As outlined in the memo, among the other changes the police department is implementing are the following:
<ul>
<li>Personnel from several plain-clothes specialized unites will be temporarily reassigned to uniform patrol duties.</li>
<li>The &#8220;Live Stop&#8221; vehicle impoundment program will be suspended until further notice.</li>
</ul>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/l-a-releases-more-than-600-inmates-slashes-arrests-to-combat-coronavirus">L.A. Releases More Than 600 Inmates, Slashes Arrests To ‘Combat Coronavirus’</a>

Danielle Outlaw

Internal Memo Reveals Philadelphia No Longer Arresting People For Long List Of Crimes; Commissioner Offers ‘Clarification’

Philadelphia

The man who helped kill 10 people in the Washington, D.C. area in 2002, known as the D.C. sniper, has married.
Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the killings, was married during a ceremony at Red Onion State Prison in southwest Virginia, the Associated Press <a href="https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/10/lee-boyd-malvo-dc-sniper-gets-married-prison/">reported</a>. “Carmeta Albarus, who has served as an adviser and mentor for Malvo since testifying at his 2003 trial, confirmed the wedding took place earlier this month,” the outlet reported.
“Over the past 17 years, he has grown despite his conditions of confinement,” she told the AP. “He has grown into an adult, and has found love with a wonderful young lady. … It was a beautiful ceremony.”
The bride has not been identified
Back in October 2002, Malvo and John Allen Muhammad terrorized the nation’s capital and neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland during a terrifying killing spree that lasted three weeks and killed 10 people while critically wounding three more. Even before the sniper spree, the pair killed others during a crime spree that began in February 2002 as the two crossed the country. They murdered and burglarized people from Washington state to Louisiana before heading up the Washington, D.C. metro area for the sniper spree.
Muhammad, who was 41 at the time of the killings, was executed in 2009 for his role. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison. Earlier this year, Virginia passed a law that allowed criminals who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crime to seek parole after serving 20 years in prison, the AP reported. This new law would have made Malvo eligible for parole in 2024.
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/d-c-snipers-case-dismissed-by-supreme-court">reported</a>, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2017 vacated three of Malvo’s life sentences in Virginia. The decision came years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders violated the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment. More from The Daily Wire:
<blockquote>The Supreme Court heard Malvo’s case last fall. Attorneys for Malvo, now 35, argued that he should be resentenced in light of the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on juvenile offenders. The Supreme Case on Wednesday dismissed Malvo’s case.
“The one-sentence order, which was expected, comes two days after Virginia’s governor signed a bill making juvenile offenders who were sentenced to life imprisonment eligible for parole after serving 20 years. Both sides told the Supreme Court there was no reason to continue the case,” CNN reported.</blockquote>
Though Malvo received some relief in Virginia, he won’t be released from prison anytime soon. He still has three life sentences in Maryland for the people he killed there during his 2002 crime spree. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) released a statement saying the case was about more than just Malvo.
“He has counts in the state of Maryland so it would be a long time. But it’s not so much about him. It’s about the hundreds of people who are incarcerated right now and were tried as juveniles and we want them to have an opportunity for a second chance,” Northam said in the statement.

Lee Boyd Malvo

The Sniper Who Killed 10 People In Washington, DC Gets Married. In Prison.

Washington D.C.

Zachary McCoy is an avid biker who makes frequent loops around his neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida. To track his rides, McCoy, 30, uses the app RunKeeper, which uses his phone’s location services to track his movements.
The tracking, however, eventually led to McCoy becoming a suspect in a burglary he didn’t commit – because the app showed he had passed the victim’s home three times in an hour on the day of the crime, NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761">reported</a>. McCoy had no clue he had become a suspect or that police had access to his data until he received an email from Google’s legal investigations support team, informing him that local police requested his data and the only way to stop them from receiving it was to go to court. The email said he had seven days to try and block the subpoena.
“I was hit with a really deep fear,” McCoy told the outlet.
“I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew the police wanted to get something from me,” he added. “I was afraid I was going to get charged with something, I don’t know what.”
McCoy’s only clue about what was going on was a case number Google included in its email to him. McCoy searched that number on the Gainesville Police Department’s website and learned of the burglary, which had occurred less than one mile from his home. He feared going to police and trying to clear his name would backfire, so he drove to his parents’ home in St. Augustine. He told them about the notice and they decided to help him pay for an attorney.
He hired attorney Caleb Kenyon, who discovered McCoy’s data was collected via a “geofence warrant,” which allows police to collect Google location data from the area’s around crime scenes. Police receive only the data without identifying information, but once they zero in on data that looks suspicious, they can request the data.
Because McCoy’s phone showed he had passed the victim’s home multiple times on the day of the burglary, police requested his information.
It was then he realized it was the RunKeeper app that likely led to him becoming a suspect, because he was able to look up his routine from the day of the crime.
“It was a nightmare scenario,” McCoy told NBC. “I was using an app to see how many miles I rode my bike and now it was putting me at the scene of the crime. And I was the lead suspect.”
Kenyon spoke with the detective on the case and told him, “You’re looking at the wrong guy.” He filed a motion to declare the warrant “null and void” on January 31 in Alachua County civil court in order to block Google from releasing more information about McCoy. He used John Doe in the motion to protect McCoy’s privacy, as Google hadn’t released any identifying information about him yet. Kenyon argued in the motion, according to NBC News, that the warrant was unconstitutional because it allowed police to forgo current search methods by targeting a single suspect and instead cast a huge net before targeting someone.
“This geofence warrant effectively blindly casts a net backwards in time hoping to ensnare a burglar,” Kenyon wrote in the motion. “This concept is akin to the plotline in many a science fiction film featuring a dystopian, fascist government.”
Luckily for McCoy, the filing forced law enforcement to rethink their investigation. Kenyon said an attorney from the state attorney’s office said the motion led them to rethink McCoy – whose name they did not know at them – was not the burglar. The warrant was withdrawn and Kenyon dropped his legal challenge. Today, McCoy is not a suspect, but the privacy issue his case represents goes much deeper, plus, there is still a burglary victim out there.
“I’m definitely sorry that happened to her, and I’m glad police were trying to solve it,” McCoy told NBC. “But it just seems like a really broad net for them to cast. What’s the cost-benefit? How many innocent people do we have to harass?”

Roadcycling

He Was Riding His Bike With An App To Track His Miles. Then He Became A Burglary Suspect.

Surveillance

Major crimes soared in February in New York City, and New York Police Department (NYPD) officials blame one change that was implemented for the uptick: bail reform. The NYPD stated in a press release, “Criminal justice reforms serve as a significant reason New York City has seen this uptick in crime.”
According to the NYPD, compared to February 2019, major crimes grew 22.5%; in addition, the city suffered a 7.1% increase in shootings.  The city also saw a rise in robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny, according to <a href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/new-york-city-sees-surge-in-major-crime">Fox News</a>. The only piece of good news was that murder plunged 20%.
Fox News added, “The NYPD says that in the first 58 days of 2020, 482 individuals who had already been arrested for committing a felony such as robbery or burglary were rearrested for committing an additional 846 crimes. Thirty-five percent, or 299, were for arrests in the seven major crime categories – murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto – that is nearly triple the amount of those crimes committed in the same 58 days in 2019.”
<a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/bail-reform-a-significant-reason-for-crime-spike-nypd-says/">The New York Post</a> pointed out, “All of the 482 suspects could have landed in jail prior to Jan. 1 when the state’s new bail reform law kicked in and prohibited pretrial detention in most misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies, the NYPD said.”
The NYPD revealed that New York prosecutors declined to prosecute 803 crimes in January and February; last year that figure was 527 cases.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea stated, “Each number presents a victim. We will continue to work hand-in-hand with New Yorkers and our law enforcement partners to zero in on the drivers of crime and deliver justice for the victims.”
In early January, Barry Latzer, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY,explained in <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/new-york-state-bail-reform-law-wont-work/">National Review</a>:
<blockquote>The new law prohibits arraignment judges (the ones that handle an arrested person’s first court appearance) from demanding bail for certain defendants or remanding them to jail. Instead, they must release the defendant on his own recognizance (ROR). This release order supposedly does not apply to violent felony offenders. However, numerous crimes of violence or potential violence are found among the state’s so-called nonviolent felonies, including certain robberies, rapes, and assaults.
And judges in New York — unlike judges in 46 other states — may not take public safety into account when deciding whether or not to release someone. While New York law directs arraignment judges to focus on the likelihood of return when ruling on release, it does not provide for an assessment of the risk of nonappearance.</blockquote>
He concluded, “It is true that defendants who have been arrested but not yet convicted should not be punished. It is also true that without some security — cash deposits, bail, or jail — many thousands of these defendants will never show up for their day in court, and some will commit additional crimes once freed. The balance between individual rights and public safety is best achieved by letting the judges determine on a case-by-case basis who is a flight risk or a danger to the public and helping them make this determination through data-based assessments. Top-down, arbitrary decision-making by state government simply won’t work.”

NY Major Crime Soars. Police Blame Bail Reform.

New York City

Katie Peters was going to the grocery store on February 18 just like any other day. As she returned her cart, however, a man exiting the store at the same time appeared in surveillance footage to harm her in some way.
Peters can be seen reacting to the assault on store surveillance cameras. She <a href="https://www.wbaltv.com/article/substance-in-syringe-used-in-churchton-anne-arundel-county-assault-was-semen-thomas-stemen/31158264">told</a> WBAL-TV she initially thought the man had burned her with a cigarette butt.  In the video, the man who attacked her can be seen turning around as if unaware as to what happened. Peters, however, said the man had turned to her and said, “It felt like a bee sting, didn’t it?” when she confronted him at the time of the assault.
She told police she then believed, after she confronted the man, that he had stabbed her with a syringe. Anne Arundel County police later received an anonymous tip that resulted in police arresting Thomas Bryon Stemen, 51. Police recovered a “syringe full of liquid from the driver&#8217;s side door of his vehicle,” WBAL-TV reported.
“Police initially said they learned the syringe in question contained semen. Officials later said police are unsure if any of those were the syringe in question,” the outlet reported.
Stemen has been ordered without bail on charges of first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. WBAL-TV reported that police detectives “believe there may be additional victims who have yet to report similar incidents.”
Police released <a href="https://www.aacounty.org/news-and-events/news/police-press-release---february-28-2020">a statement</a> regarding the arrest:
<blockquote>On February 18, 2020 we were notified of an assault that occurred in the parking lot of 5570 Shady Side Road in Churchton. An adult female advised she was assaulted and poked with what is believed to be a syringe while walking through the parking lot. Video surveillance was pulled and a white male approximately 50 years old is seen walking near the victim. The suspect bumps into the victim and you can see an exchange between the two. Medical treatment was sought and a syringe stick, can not be ruled out at this time.
On February 25, 2019 detectives received a tip identifying a potential suspect. Through investigative means, Detectives were able to positively identify the suspect as Thomas Bryon Stemen of Churchton, Maryland. Stemen was placed under arrest where he was charged with 1st, and 2nd Degree Assault and Reckless Endangerment.
On February 28, 2020 the Anne Arundel County Police Department learned that the substance in the syringe was semen. Additional testing and investigation are under way. Detectives believe there may be additional victims who have yet to report similar incidents. This investigation is extremely active additional charges may be applicable.</blockquote>
“This investigation is extremely active additional charges may be applicable,” the police department said on Twitter.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/28/man-named-thomas-stemen-allegedly-stabs-woman-with-syringe-full-of-semen/">reported</a> that Stemen is being held in the Jennifer Road Detention Center.
WBAL-TV interviewed a man who said he knew Peters, telling the outlet she is “not doing well” and is dealing with “a lot of stress” due to the incident. It so far appears as though she has suffered no adverse physical effects from the assault.

Thomas Stemen

Maryland Woman Allegedly Stabbed With Syringe Full Of Semen

Katlyn Alix, a wife and police officer who had been on the force for two years, was shot and killed in January 2019 while off-duty.
Alix, 24, had agreed to play a game of Russian roulette with fellow St. Louis police officer Nathaniel Hendren, 30. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ex-st-louis-officer-to-serve--year-term-for/article_d447022e-cebd-5c75-a64d-ffe7a50167f3.html">reported</a> that Hendren and his partner, Patrick Riordan, were on duty at the time of the shooting but had skipped a call about an alarm going off at a business in order to hang out with Alix. Hendren and Alix were “dry firing” their personal guns, the Post-Dispatch reported, when Hendren removed all the bullets from his revolver except for one. He then spun the cylinder and pulled the trigger while aiming at Alix. When the gun didn’t fire, he handed the weapon to Alix, who aimed and Hendren and pulled the trigger. Again, the gun didn’t fire, so Hendren took it back, aimed it at Alix’s chest, and fired. This time, the gun went off and struck Alix.
Hendren and Riordan reported the shooting using their police radios and then rushed Alix to the hospital in their department-issued vehicle. Alix died from her injuries. Hendren claimed he did not think there was a bullet in the active cylinder position when he fired at Alix.
Hendren resigned from the police department less than a month after Alix was killed and had his state peace officer license suspended, the Post-Dispatch reported. He was arrested and charged with Alix’s death and was set to go on trial next month when he pleaded guilty on Friday to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/28/ex-cop-gets-7-years-for-killing-fellow-officer-in-russian-roulette-shooting/">reported</a>.
Hendren’s plea agreement includes seven years in prison for the manslaughter charge and three years for armed criminal action, to be served concurrently. The seven-year sentence was close to the maximum allowed as a class C felony.
In court, Hendren expressed remorse for his actions.
“I don’t intend to try and explain anyone else’s hurt or make this day any more about me than it already is,” he said. “I simply wish to express my sincere remorse to this court and to the family of Katlyn Alix, a wonderful woman full of tenacity and self-determination.”
“These actions have no excuse and I will not attempt to look for one. The pain I feel is nothing compared to that of the family of Katlyn,” he added.
Alix’s mother, Aimee Lyn Wahlers, attended the sentencing as well as her siblings. Wahlers filed a wrongful death suit against Hendren, his partner Riordan, and their sergeant, Gary Foster, the Post-Dispatch <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-cop-who-fatally-shot-katlyn-alix-had-played/article_4af35154-b896-55c0-a053-2505a4db8c3f.html">reported</a>. Wahler claims in her lawsuit that Hendren had “forced other girlfriends to play Russian roulette and engage in other sexual activity that involved firearms,” according to the outlet. She also claimed Hendren had a “complicated psychiatric history” and suffered from anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and “suicidal ideations and gestures.” She alleged that Hendren, a former Marine, was occasionally known to put a loaded gun in his mouth “when alone, just to feel something.”
Hendren’s attorney, Talmage Newton IV, told the Post-Dispatch the lawsuit contained “all sorts of inaccuracies and misstatements,” but did not explain what those were.

Russian roulette

Ex-Cop Pleads Guilty To Killing Colleague In Game Of Russian Roulette

Guns

Former St. Louis police officer Nathaniel Hendren, 30, has pleaded guilty to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action after fatally shooting fellow officer Katlyn Alix while playing a game of Russian roulette. 
According to The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/nathaniel-hendren-russian-roulette-guilty.html">New York Times</a>, Hendren will serve a total of ten years in prison for the incident – seven years for killing Alix, and three years for one count of armed criminal action. The news agency reports that Hendren was on duty at the time of the incident, and was playing a game of Russian Roulette at his apartment with fellow officer Katlyn Alex, 24, who was off duty at the time.
The plea deal, which has been reviewed by the Times, indicates that Hendren inserted a bullet inside of an empty revolver, and the two officers took turns pulling the trigger.
Hendren pulled the trigger the first time while aiming at a wall, but the gun didn’t fire; Alix then pulled the trigger while aiming at Hendren, but the gun, again, did not fire. Hendren then took the gun back from Alix, and pulled the trigger while pointing it at her – the gun fired and Alix was shot in the chest, and died from the injury, reports the news agency.
According to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/us/st-louis-police-russian-roulette-killing-guilty-plea/index.html">CNN</a>, another officer, who was in the apartment at the time the game started, was about to leave after giving Hendren and Alix a final warning about not playing with weapons.
According to <a href="https://fox8.com/news/former-cop-pleads-guilty-in-case-of-russian-roulette-style-game-that-killed-colleague/">Fox News</a>, court documents show that Hendren told his supervisor at the time of the incident that “he did not try and kill the victim because he was in love with her and they were in an intimate relationship and were planning on moving into his apartment.” However, according to the Times, Hendren was in a relationship with the officer who warned them against playing with weapons.
As The New York <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/us/russian-roulette-cop-killing.html">Times</a> previously reported, prosecutors at the St. Louis district attorney’s office accused the police department of mishandling the investigation and preemptively labeling the incident as an accident before knowing the facts of the case.
At the time of the incident, prosecutors suspected that drugs or alcohol may have been involved, and were critical of the police department after they refused to take a blood test of the two surviving officers who were at the apartment the night Alix died.
Prosecutor Kim Gardner also criticized the police department’s investigation tactics, including the department’s decision to conduct breathalyzer tests and urine samples, which are less precise than blood samples, under Garrity Rights, which protect public employees from self-incrimination during the course of an employer investigation.
“Taking these tests under the cover of Garrity appears as an obstructionist tactic to prevent us from understanding the state of the officers during the commission of this alleged crime,” wrote Gardner in a letter to the police commissioner at the time. “We have the expectation that those test results will be turned over to our office immediately as part of the ongoing investigation.”
A spokesperson for the St. Louis mayor at the time responded to Gardner by saying that “the police department is in no way obstructing this investigation.”
In response to the letter, an attorney for Hendren said that Gardner was incapable of being “impartial, unbiased or objective,” reports the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/us/russian-roulette-cop-killing.html">Times</a>. 
According to CNN, the attorney also pushed back on the claim that the incident was “anything more than a tragic accident.”
&#8220;We are aware of the rumors, innuendo, and salacious gossip surrounding the accidental death of Officer Katlyn Alix,&#8221; said Hendren’s attorney in a statement, reports the news agency. &#8220;There is no evidence, nor will there ever be, that this was anything more than a tragic accident.&#8221;

Person Holding Gun

Police Officer Sentenced For On-Duty Russian Roulette Fatality

Russian Roulette

Before former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw his hat into the 2020 presidential race, he defended the New York Police Department&#8217;s use of &#8220;stop, question and frisk&#8221; policing. At a United States Naval Academy&#8217;s 2019 Leadership Conference, Bloomberg said, &#8220;We focused on keeping kids from going through the correctional system &#8230; kids who walked around looking like they might have a gun, remove the gun from their pockets and stop it.&#8221; He claimed that as a result of his policy, New York&#8217;s murder rate fell from 650 a year to 300 the year he left office.
In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1968, granted limited approval to officers to stop, question and frisk, even though they lacked probable cause for an arrest, if the officer believed the subject to be dangerous. The Court&#8217;s decision made suspicion of danger to an officer grounds for a &#8220;reasonable search.&#8221;
The stop, question and frisk policy has taken on racial overtones because most of the people stopped are black men. Let&#8217;s look at the numbers. Last year, NYPD data showed that 93% of suspects arrested for murder were black or Hispanic. Ninety-six percent of those nabbed in shootings were also minorities. Eighty-eight percent of New York City&#8217;s homicide victims were black or Hispanic as were 96% of shooting victims. While these percentages have been roughly the same for decades, New York police have brought the absolute number of crimes, including homicides, way down from its 1990 peak at 2,245 to 289 homicides in 2018. Since blacks and Hispanics are the major victims of homicide, as a result of the NYPD&#8217;s proactive response to crime, possibly tens of thousands of blacks are living today who would otherwise be dead.
For a law-abiding black person to be stopped, questioned and frisked — in a word or two, be racially profiled — is truly insulting. However, to analyze the policy, let&#8217;s look at the origins of racial profiling or any other kind of profiling. First of all, policemen are neither mind readers nor are they equipped with X-ray vision. That means good policing requires learning how to use an easily observed physical characteristic as a guess or proxy for some other difficult-to-observe characteristic. Thus, the reason people profile is that information is costly and they seek methods to economize on information costs. One way to do that is through profiling.
The reality is that race and other behavioral characteristics are correlated, including criminal behavior. That fact does not dispel the insult, embarrassment, anger and hurt a law-abiding black person might feel when being stopped by police, being watched in stores, being passed by taxi drivers, standing at traffic lights and hearing car door locks activated or being refused delivery by merchants who fear for their safety in his neighborhood.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a politician in pursuit of his own agenda. President Donald Trump is also a politician in pursuit of his own agenda. Both will deny their support for and talk down the policy of stop, question and frisk in an effort to curry favor with black voters. Most Bloomberg and Trump supporters don&#8217;t live under the horrible conditions that so many blacks live under in high crime cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit. Black people must ask what needs to be done to stop criminals from preying on them and making so many of their communities economic wastelands. If stop, question and frisk can contribute to that goal, so be it. They need not listen to politicians, academics, talking heads on the news and others.
I&#8217;ll add that even if the police, intimidated by leftists, are not doing their job to safeguard black residents in high crime communities, that doesn&#8217;t mean that black people should not organize to take independent measures to protect themselves.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

NYPD car

WILLIAMS: Stop, Question And Frisk

Donald Trump

Michael Bloomberg

Race

Stop-and-frisk

An attorney representing actress Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli is asking a judge to delay his clients’ trials, citing “exonerating” evidence that has been recently revealed.
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-mossimo-giannulli-lawyer-fbi-college-admissions-scandal-lie">reported</a> that Sean M. Berkowitz, who is representing the couple, wrote in court documents that personal notes written by William “Rick” Singer – the man behind the entire college admissions scam – was allegedly told to lie by the FBI. The notes, according to Berkowitz, suggest the FBI told Singer to say he made Loughlin and others who participated in the scam that the money they were providing to him was a bribe, not a donation to the school.
“Singer’s notes indicate that FBI agents yelled at him and instructed him to lie by saying that he told his clients who participated in the alleged ‘side door’ scheme that their payments were bribes, rather than legitimate donations that went to the schools,” Berkowitz argued in court documents. “They further note the Government’s desire to ‘nail’ one of the defendants ‘at all costs.’”
Singer’s notes said FBI investigators asked him to “bend the truth” when it came to the scandal.
“Loud and abrasive call with agents,” the notes said, as reported by Fox. “They continue to ask me to tell a fib and not restate what I told my clients as to where their money was going &#8212; to the program not the coach and that it was a donation and they want it to be a payment.”
Berkowitz also took prosecutors to task for withholding the evidence, which he says forced Loughlin and Giannulli to seek court remedies to obtain the evidence.
“The supplemental discovery produced today demonstrates that the Government was simply not being truthful with Defendants or the Court in the above filings, given that as early as October 2, 2018, Singer told agents working on the case the exact information we have been seeking in discovery, and those agents attempted to bully him into lying and saying something different,” Berkowitz argued. “This belated discovery, which should have been produced no later than 30 days after indictment, is devastating to the Government’s case and demonstrates that the Government has been improperly withholding core exculpatory information, employing a &#8216;win at all costs&#8217; effort rather than following their obligation to do justice.”
“The Government is trying to benefit from withholding information in violation of its obligations and the Defendants’ constitutional rights, but then force trial as quickly as it can. The Government should not be rewarded, nor the Defendants punished, for this kind of egregious lack of candor and violation of its obligations,” he concluded.
As Fox reported, Loughlin and Giannulli plead not guilty to bribery charges that accused the couple of arranging a $500,000 bribe to Singer to get their daughters not only into the University of Southern California (USC) but also on the crew team even though they had never participated in the sport.
“The charge of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery carries a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The couple was <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-mossimo-giannulli-indicted-on-fraud-and-money-laundering-charges-in-college-admissions-scandal">previously hit with charges</a> of money laundering and conspiracy that could land them behind bars for <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-mossimo-giannulli-could-face-even-more-jail-time-following-money-laundering-indictment-experts-say">40 years if convicted on all of them</a>,” Fox reported.

Lori Loughlin

Attorney For Lori Loughlin, Mossimo Giannulli Argues FBI Instructed Mastermind Behind College Admissions Scandal To Lie

Education

The Department of Justice is setting up a dedicated unit to investigating a specific type of immigration fraud that relates to naturalized citizens who had lied on their applications by leaving out prior criminal convictions.
John Bash, U.S. attorney for the western district of Texas, announced the new unit on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program.
“This new unit addresses exactly the kind of people you were just talking about – people who molest children, terrorists. We’ve stood up a unit of 20-30 attorneys who are going to work civil de-naturalization cases, and what those cases are, is when someone lies in the process of trying to get naturalized to be a citizen, usually about their criminal past, but they nevertheless obtain citizenship, we can then actually go in after the fact and strip them of citizenship so long as a judge agrees,” Bash said. “And we’ve been doing that, we’ve stepped that up 200% in the last three years, but it’s getting to the point where we get enough referrals that it’s time to stand up a standalone unit, and so we have 20-30 lawyers dedicated to bring justice to victims of child molestation and to victims of terrorism, war crimes, and so forth.”
Ingraham then displayed a tweet from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that claimed the Trump administration was going after American citizens and taking away their citizenship.
Bash called the ACLU statement “an outrageous statement that really impugns the integrity of all the career attorneys at DOJ that work on these issues.”
“This is about people that never should have been naturalized, never should have been American citizens in the first case,” Bash said. “I’ll just give you a couple of examples. We denaturalized two Balkans Conflicts war criminals who murdered unarmed civilians in the Balkans Conflict. We denaturalized, in my home state of Texas, a man who was molesting a 7-year-old girl who was a family member and of course didn’t disclose that on his naturalization application. I’d really like for the ACLU or anyone else to confront the actual facts of these cases and explain why someone who has been molesting children and lies about it should not be denaturalized.”
Ingraham then asked Bash if most of those who were being denaturalized through this particular process came from “chain migration,” but Bash said that wasn’t the only way they were able to slip through the process.
“They come all different ways. Some of them are people who might have lied about being a family member, but a lot of people come here as refugees, but then lie about the fact that the very conflict they’re fleeing from – they were the war criminal in that conflict,” Bash said. “And the other thing the ACLU leaves out is we have to prove almost beyond a reasonable doubt to a judge’s satisfaction [that] this person never should have been a U.S. citizen. So, there’s all sorts of procedural protections in place to avoid discrimination or unfair treatment in this process.”
WATCH:
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Refugees

DOJ Will Revoke Citizenship From Immigrants Who Failed To Disclose Previous Convictions

Illegal Immigration

Seventeen years ago, the Washington, D.C. metro area was terrorized for three weeks by sniper fire, which claimed the lives of 10 people and critically injured three others.
The culprits were John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the attacks. Muhammad was executed on November 10, 2009, while Malvo was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders violated the Eight Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, CNN <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/26/politics/supreme-court-lee-boyd-malvo-case-dc-sniper/index.html">reported</a>. In 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the three life sentences Malvo received in Virginia based on the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling.
The Supreme Court heard Malvo’s case last fall. Attorneys for Malvo, now 35, argued that he should be resentenced in light of the Supreme Court’s recent rulings on juvenile offenders. The Supreme Case on Wednesday dismissed Malvo’s case.
“The one-sentence order, which was expected, comes two days after Virginia&#8217;s governor signed a bill making juvenile offenders who were sentenced to life imprisonment eligible for parole after serving 20 years. Both sides told the Supreme Court there was no reason to continue the case,” CNN reported.
Just because Malvo’s sentence in Virginia was reduced does not mean he will be getting out of prison anytime soon. He still has life sentences from Maryland for the people who were killed there during the 2002 attacks. More from CNN:
<blockquote>At oral arguments, Virginia argued that the sentence of life without parole could stand because Malvo&#8217;s sentence was discretionary, not mandatory.
Justice Elena Kagan had questioned, however, whether Virginia properly considered Malvo&#8217;s age. She pointed out that the 2012 decision, which she wrote, could be summarized in two words: &#8220;youth matters,&#8221; and that a sentencer must treat children differently from adult offenders.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, on the other hand, repeatedly questioned a lawyer for Malvo on the meaning of the court&#8217;s precedents and how they would impact cases where the judge or jury did not just consider a sentence of life without parole.</blockquote>
In response to the Supreme Court dismissing the case, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) released a statement saying the case is about more than just Malvo.
“He has counts in the state of Maryland so it would be a long time. But it’s not so much about him. It’s about the hundreds of people who are incarcerated right now and were tried as juveniles and we want them to have an opportunity for a second chance,” Northam said in the statement.
Fox 5 DC <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/dc-sniper-case-dismissal-prompts-statement-from-virginia-gov-northam">reported</a> that former Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who prosecuted Malvo for his crimes in Maryland, made sure people knew Malvo was not getting released thanks to the latest ruling.
“Six people were murdered in Montgomery County and should have their day in court, was that we were worried and concerned about what might happen in Virginia down the road. And this has happened, so even in the event that Malvo were to be paroled, he would then have to serve six life sentences in Maryland,” Gansler said in his own statement, adding that Malvo is unlikely to be paroled and the Maryland sentences mean he’ll probably never leave prison.

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