Crime

Michigan’s Hillsdale Daily News reports: A Jonesville man who fled to the Philippines to avoid prosecution on dozens of child sex abuse charges last summer has been sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. The Hillsdale County Prosecutor’s Office turned over a number of criminal allegations to the U.S. District Court when it was discovered Tye Braxton Stiger, 37, fled …

The San Antonio Express-News reports: In letters read aloud on Sunday to the affected congregations, San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller announced that two priests had been removed from ministry and reported to law enforcement over allegations that they had inappropriate sexual contact with minors. The congregations at both churches were notified Sunday via letters from Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller that were …

From my September 2022 report: A Republican county official in Georgia escorted two operatives working with an attorney for former President Donald Trump into the county’s election offices on the same day a voting system there was breached, newly obtained video shows. In the surveillance video, which was obtained by CNN, Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County …

The Kenosha County Eye reports: Someone summoned the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department to the Somers Walmart early Thursday morning, August 10th. The person saw a male white, fully naked, standing next to a black truck and appeared to be masturbating. According to Kenosha County Sheriff spokesman Lt. Ryan Markowski, 57-year-old Thomas Bartmer was seen by responding deputies quickly getting into …

The Hill reports: A Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty to charges that he sent a bomb threat to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office in 2021, the Justice Department announced Friday. James Clark, of Cape Cod, sent a message to the secretary of state’s office via its website demanding the secretary “resign by Tuesday February 16th by 9 am or …

Colorado Springs’ ABC affiliate reports: A youth pastor at a Fowler church is headed to jail for just under two months after pleading guilty to lesser charges connected to the sexual assault of a child. An investigation into 46-year-old Gabe Geringer began in 2018 when a victim came forward. According to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, Geringer was originally charged …

The Washington Examiner reports: A former Tennessee state senator was given a 21-month prison sentence Friday for violating campaign finance laws. Brian Kelsey, 45, pleaded guilty to concealing the transfer of $91,000 from his state Senate campaign and $25,000 from a nonprofit group into a national political organization that went on to fund ads for his failed bid for the …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: A political consultant who acted as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2020 campaign manager and two others have agreed to pay more than $50,000 in restitution and penalties for their roles in operating a phony East Palestine charity in the aftermath of a widely-publicized train derailment. Under a settlement announced Thursday by Ohio Attorney General …

The New York Times reports: The 17-year-old charged with murder as a hate crime in the fatal stabbing last month of a gay Black dancer at a Brooklyn gas station pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Friday. The teenager, Dmitriy Popov, entered the plea in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, where he will be tried as an adult. He …

Reuters reports: A U.S judge on Friday revoked Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail, after finding probable cause that the indicted founder of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange tampered with witnesses at least twice. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced the decision at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, less than two months before the scheduled October fraud trial. He rejected a …

Greenville, South Carolina’s CBS affiliate reports: A former priest in Laurens, South Carolina, will be headed to prison after taking a minor from South Carolina to Florida with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Jamie Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, aka “Father Gonzalez,” 68, of Laurens, a former Catholic priest, pleaded guilty in federal court …

Salt Lake City’s CBS affiliate reports: Roselle (Rosie) Anderson Stevenson, formerly Rosie Hamblin, 70, of Provo, the ex-wife of David Hamblin who was arrested last September for aggravated sexual abuse of a child, lewdness with a child, rape of a child and several counts of sodomy on a child was booked into the Utah County Jail on one felony count …

The Guardian reports: The Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been shot dead as he left a campaign event in Quito, days before an election where the central issue is the rise violence and crime. Videos on social media show Villavicencio, a former journalist who had collaborated with the Guardian and was outspoken about alleged links between organised crime and …

The Associated Press reports: The mother of a 30-year-old Michigan man who’s accused of making death threats against Democratic politicians is now charged with lying when she purchased firearms later found in her son’s possession. Threats against public officials have become increasingly common in Michigan in recent years. A plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer [photo] was broken up by …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that one of its priests sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in Delaware County nearly two decades ago. Filed in 2020, the lawsuit alleges that Pastor John Close raped the boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006. The plaintiff, whose name …

The Associated Press reports: A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges. Anton “Tony” Lazzaro was found guilty in March by a federal jury of seven counts involving “commercial sex acts” with five girls ages 15 and 16 …

The Lexington Times reports: A Lexington high school teacher, Kevin Lentz, 49, has been charged with 17 sexual offenses involving minors and has been placed on leave by the Fayette County district. Lentz, an English teacher at Henry Clay High School, was arrested and charged with 10 counts of distribution of obscene matter to a minor, seven counts of use …

The Miami Herald reports: A federal judge issued arrest warrants this month for two people living in the Florida Keys who the FBI said participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol.  Bryan Roger Bishop, 51, is accused of spraying a chemical irritant in the face of two Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department officers. He faces several …

New York City’s Pix11 reports: As loved ones prepare to celebrate the life of O’Shae Sibley on Tuesday in his native Philadelphia, the attorney for the teen accused in his stabbing death is speaking out. Dmitriy Popov, 17, of Brooklyn, was arraigned on multiple charges, including murder and a hate crime. The Kings County district attorney is charging Popov as …

The Guardian reports: A board which helps the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, evaluate abuse allegations against priests and deacons in six cases found clergymen to be credibly accused only for Aymond to ignore the findings and conceal them from the public, a Guardian investigation has found. Aymond’s management of the cases in question as the leader …