Crime

The Associated Press reports: A truck driver has been arrested after saying he would commit a mass shooting at a church in Memphis, Tennessee, authorities say in newly filed court records. Thomas Matthew McVicker was apprehended in Indianapolis before the plan could be carried out, according to court papers filed Monday. It’s the most recent case in a string of …

The Washington Post reports: When federal agents arrived at Farhan Sheikh’s Chicago residence last week with a search warrant in hand, the 19-year-old suspected they were there because of a “joke” he had posted on a popular meme sharing platform, according to a complaint unsealed Monday. The allegedly humorous post? A threat to “slaughter and murder any doctor, patient, or …

Bloomberg reports: Jeffrey Epstein wrote a will just two days before his suicide, placing $578 million in assets in a trust, a move which could complicate efforts to collect damages by women who say he sexually abused them. By placing all of his assets in a trust, Epstein could shield their distribution from the public. He asked that Darren K. …

Reuters reports: The acting director of the federal Bureau of Prisons has been removed from his position more than a week after millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein took his own life while in federal custody. Attorney General William Barr announced Hugh Hurwitz’s reassignment Monday. Hurwitz had served as the agency’s acting director since May 2018. No reason was given for the …

ABC News reports: The administrative judge who oversaw the departmental trial of NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo blamed him for a “glaring dereliction of responsibility that precipitated a tragic outcome” – the death of Eric Garner. The judge, Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado recommended earlier this month that Pantaleo be dismissed from the NYPD after she found him guilty of recklessly causing …

NBC News reports: Britain’s Prince Andrew is once again trying to distance himself from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. “The Duke of York has been appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement emailed to NBC News on Monday, referring to the prince by his royal title. “His Royal Highness deplores the exploitation …

The Miami Herald reports: A decade ago, during a brief stint in Palm Beach County Jail, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein made an odd purchase at the facility’s store: two pairs of small women’s panties, size 5. It was just one of thousands of dollars of purchases made by the disgraced financier while in jail after pleading guilty in 2008 …

Chicken and rice. No, really. The New York Post reports: The suspect wanted for Friday’s rice cooker bomb scare is a 26-year-old West Virginia native who is facing charges in his home state for allegedly sending bestiality videos involving a chicken to a minor, law enforcement sources told The Post. Cops believe Larry Griffin II, of Bruno, is the same …

The Associated Press reports: Two of four young men arrested for plotting to attack an upstate New York Muslim community with homemade explosives were sentenced Friday to four to 12 years in prison. Brian Colaneri, 20, and Andrew Crysel, 19, pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy in June. They and two others from the Rochester area were accused of planning to …

The New York Times reports: The official results of an autopsy showed that the financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell, the city’s medical examiner’s office said on Friday, determining that the cause of death was suicide by hanging. The determination came six days after Mr. Epstein, 66, was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan …

Via press release from the Justice Department: William Patrick Syring, 61, of Arlington, Virginia, was today sentenced to 60 months in prison for threatening employees of the Arab American Institute (AAI) because of their race and national origin, threatening AAI employees because of their efforts to encourage Arab Americans to participate in political and civic life in the United States, …

The Deseret News reports: Ed Smart, the father of kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, shared in a Facebook message with family and friends Thursday that he is gay, divorcing his wife and doesn’t see a place for himself in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In “one of the hardest letters I have ever written,” Smart wrote that “I …

Gothamist reports: On Friday morning, a lower Manhattan subway hub was evacuated, eight subway lines were diverted during rush hour, and a few blocks in Chelsea were frozen after three suspicious packages—which turned out to be harmless rice cookers—were found. Now police are looking for a person who was “observed in the area of the Fulton Street Subway Station with …

The Associated Press release: Three abandoned devices that looked like pressure cookers prompted an evacuation of a major New York City subway station and closed off an intersection in another part of town Friday morning before police determined the objects were not explosives. Police were looking to talk to a man seen on surveillance video taking two of the rice …

The New York Daily News reports: A pair of suspicious pressure cookers shut down a subway station in Lower Manhattan on Friday morning — but the NYPD’s Bomb Squad later determined they were not explosives, authorities said. Another suspicious package was found near a garbage can in Chelsea just over an hour later. Cops have not determined what the third …

The Desert News reports: Deborah Sue Culwell, the Southern California woman who was recorded tossing seven 3-day-old puppies into a recycling bin behind an auto parts business in April, pleaded guilty in court Wednesday afternoon to all counts related to the case. She was sentenced to 365 days in county jail, although 90 of those days will be under a …

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports: Jeffrey Epstein can’t speak from the grave concerning a lawsuit by his sexual abuse victims, attorneys argued Thursday. Epstein’s lawyers had argued that victims’ claims were moot after his death. They added that claims against possible “co-conspirators” also are improper. The lawyers in South Florida are fighting over the next step in an 11-year-old civil …

The New York Post reports: Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged madam and former lover Ghislaine Maxwell has been discovered — at In-N-Out Burger. The 57-year-old was photographed alive and well Monday by an eagle-eyed diner at the burger joint in Universal City, Los Angeles. Once spotted, Maxwell — who was sitting alone with a pet pooch — told an onlooker: “Well, I …

The Washington Post reports: An autopsy found that financier Jeffrey Epstein sustained multiple breaks in his neck bones, according to two people familiar with the findings, deepening the mystery about the circumstances around his death. Among the bones broken in Epstein’s neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam’s apple. Such breaks can occur in those …

The Missoulian reports: Curt Brockway pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Mineral County District Court to choke-slamming a 13-year-old boy earlier this month at the county fairgrounds. Brockway’s attorney said during the court appearance, which featured heavy security, that he’ll seek a psychiatric evaluation for his client. Attorney Lance Jasper told the Missoulian that Brockway, a 39-year-old U.S. Army veteran, has …