Crime

Courthouse News reports: “I will regret every day of my life the day I met Martin Shkreli.” Evan Greebel, the former lawyer for “Pharma Bro” Shkreli, briefly addressed the court for the first time during his sentencing Friday for wire and securities fraud conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto sentenced Greebel to 18 months in prison and over $10 million …

And the pardon chatter turns into a roar: President Trump on Friday defended his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, as a “good person” even as a jury deliberates a verdict in his financial fraud trial. Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump said Manafort only worked for him for a short period of time but …

Orlando’s NBC affiliate reports: An unruly passenger was arrested Thursday morning at Orlando International Airport and the incident was caught on camera. Jeffrey Epstein is charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, trespassing after a warning and disorderly conduct, according to an arrest affidavit from the Orlando Police Department. Police said that Epstein began to yell when …

CNN reports: The Vatican broke its silence on Thursday about a Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuses by priests and cover-ups by bishops, calling the accusations “criminal and morally reprehensible.” “Regarding the report made public in Pennsylvania this week, there are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow,” …

CBS News reports: New York City unveiled an ambitious plan on Wednesday to replace the notorious Rikers Island jail complex with four smaller lockups located in densely populated neighborhoods, including turning an Art Deco government building that went up in lower Manhattan in 1930 into a tower for up to 1,500 inmates. Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials …

CNN reports: The Vatican has declined to respond to an explosive grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and bishops in Pennsylvania, refusing even to say whether church officials in Rome have read the damaging documents. “We have no comment at this time,” Paloma Ovejero, deputy director of the Vatican’s press office, said Wednesday. But …

The Allentown Morning Call reports: George said he never discussed the nude Polaroids, or the twisted, secret gift he and the other kids had been given decades ago by the men who preyed on them. These weren’t the kinds of things you could share without feeling humiliated, especially not if you grew up tough, like he did on the South …

The Allentown Morning Call reports: A scathing grand jury report released Tuesday reveals sexual abuse by hundreds of priests that went unchecked for decades in dioceses across Pennsylvania, including Allentown. Instead of reporting pedophiles, dioceses routinely shuffled them from parish to parish, enabling them to prey upon new victims, the document shows. The statewide grand jury spent two years on …

CNBC reports: Rep. Chris Collins, one of President Donald Trump’s earliest backers in Congress, suspended his campaign on Saturday, in the wake of insider trading allegations that resulted in his dramatic arrest this week. In a statement, the embattled New York Republican who represents the state’s 27th Congressional district said that “after extensive discussions with my family and my friends …

The Associated Press reports: An airline worker stole an empty Alaska Airlines plane from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington on Friday night, and the National Guard scrambled two fighter jets to chase the aircraft, which crashed on a sparsely populated island in Puget Sound, officials said. No passengers were aboard the 76-seat Horizon Air Q400 turboprop plane, which was stolen …

The Huffington Post reports: A man arrested on Tuesday in connection with a devastating wildfire in Southern California is a conspiracy theorist who posted videos about satanic rituals and QAnon. “This place is going to burn,” Forrest Clark, 51, allegedly texted a volunteer fire chief two weeks before an inferno enveloped Orange County, burning nearly 20,000 acres and destroying 12 …

The North Jersey Record reports: Michael Coppola, the chief of the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police Department, was arrested Thursday for allegedly buying cocaine and having it shipped to a Passaic County post office box, authorities said in a news release. Investigators believed Coppola was ordering drugs through the internet and having it delivered to the post office box, according to …

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports: Florida Atlantic University canceled tonight’s graduation ceremony after a “credible threat” was found in a note stuck to a mirror in a women’s bathroom on campus. A staff member found the small sticky note at about 4:15 p.m. in the Business Building. “It was a threat specific to our graduation tonight,” said Chief of FAU …

CNN reports: Rick Gates, the key prosecution witness in the tax and fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, told jurors Monday he had committed crimes alongside — and at the direction of — his former partner. Gates stated he and Manafort had 15 foreign accounts they did not report to the federal government, and knew it was …

TMZ Sports reports: Brian France — the CEO and Chairman of NASCAR — was arrested for DUI on Sunday evening in The Hamptons and cops say he was also in possession of oxycodone, TMZ Sports has learned.  The 56-year-old — one of the most powerful people in professional sports — was initially stopped in Sag Harbor, NY while driving a …

South Carolina’s The State reports: The former leader of the South Carolina Republican Party was recently arrested after police said he “cruelly” killed his mother’s dog, and told them he did it because he was acting on a command from God — and that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. It was the latest in a downward spiral …

The Los Angeles Times reports: A 21-year-old Newport Beach man charged with murder in the stabbing death of former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein will also face a hate crime sentencing enhancement, the Orange County district attorney announced Thursday. Orange County District Atty. Tony Rackauckas said prosecutors added the hate crime enhancement based on allegations that Samuel Woodward killed 19-year-old …

Penn Live reports: At a news conference Wednesday in Westmoreland County, Attorney General Josh Shapiro called Father John Sweeney of the Greensburg Diocese a predator. Sweeney, 75, is the first priest convicted as a result of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, which recently concluded an investigation into sexually abusive priests and clergy in six of the state’s eight Catholic …

The Christian Post reports: A former New Jersey pastor who co-founded the Creation Festival, which bills itself as the country’s largest Christian music festival, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for sexually assaulting multiple young children. Harry Thomas, 75, who formerly pastored Come Alive New Testament Church in Medford and went on to help create the popular music …

The Associated Press reports: Two questions loom large as Paul Manafort prepares to walk into a federal courtroom Tuesday: Will Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman spend what effectively could be the rest of his life in prison? Or will special counsel Robert Mueller be handed a defeat in his team’s first trial since his appointment more than a year ago? …