Crime

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? …

Reuters reports: The man accused of shooting five people to death last month at a newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, entered a plea of not guilty on Monday to all 23 felony charges against him, including five counts of first-degree murder. The plea was entered on behalf of Jarrod Ramos, 38, by his lawyers in a filing with the Anne …

Bloomberg reports: Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, earned more than $60 million as a political consultant in Ukraine, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller said on the eve of his criminal trial, providing the first tally of Manafort’s income there. Prosecutors intend to prove that Manafort made that much and “failed to report a significant percentage of it …

The Los Angeles Times reports: An Indiana man who was headed toward L.A. Pride two years ago in a car filled with weapons, explosives and high-capacity magazines was sentenced to seven years in state prison on Thursday, officials said. James Wesley Howell, 22, pleaded no contest to possession of an explosive chemical, malicious possession of a destructive device and illegal …

The Ottawa Citizen reports: Ontario’s police watchdog has identified the man responsible for a shooting rampage in Toronto’s Greektown as Faisal Hussain. The Special Investigations Unit says Hussain is a 29-year-old from Toronto. Police have said he was found dead after exchanging fire with police during the shooting on Sunday night. Two people were killed and 13 others injured in …

Bloomberg reports: The trial set to begin this week for Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, was delayed until July 31 by a judge who separately granted immunity to five witnesses who said they would have remained silent without the protection. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III on Monday pushed back Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial after defense …

Roanoke’s ABC affiliate reports: The Roanoke Police Department is investigating after they said someone threw a brick into Sen. Mark Warner’s office. Warner’s press secretary said the individual threw the brick through the front office window around 7:30 a.m. Monday, July 23. Police said officers were called to the office on 2nd Street and Kirk Avenue, S.W. after a person …

The Globe & Mail reports: A young woman is dead and another 13 people are injured, including a child in critical condition, after a lone gunman walked along Toronto’s busy Danforth Avenue on Sunday night, randomly shooting pedestrians before opening fire on crowded restaurants. The 29-year-old shooter died in a nearby alley after an exchange of gunfire with police, though …

The Idaho Inlander reports: A Hayden, Idaho, man has been arrested and charged with a hate crime stemming from an incident at a McDonald’s in Coeur d’Alene on July 12. Richard Sovenski, 52, was booked into Kootenai County jail Tuesday on one count of misdemeanor battery and one count of felony malicious harassment, Idaho’s hate crime statute, according to Coeur …

Politico reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller released an itemized list Wednesday night detailing well over 500 pieces of evidence that his prosecutors are considering presenting during their upcoming criminal trial of former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. To make its case that Manafort committed bank and tax fraud, the lead Russia investigator signaled his intention to share with a …

The New York Daily News reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller is seeking immunity for five potential witnesses in the upcoming trial of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. Mueller’s office told a federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday that it was seeking to compel the witnesses to testify under condition of immunity. Prosecutors have not identified the witnesses and …

The New York Times reports: Dean G. Skelos, once one of the most powerful political figures in New York State, was found guilty of bribery, extortion and conspiracy on Tuesday, marking the fourth time in five months that a major federal case targeting corruption in Albany has ended in a conviction. The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan deliberated …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: The use of a panic defense to justify anti-LGBT violence in federal court will come to an end if new legislation introduced this week by a pair of Massachusetts Democrats becomes law. The bill, introduced by Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-Mass.) in the U.S. House and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) in the U.S. Senate, …

The Washington Post reports: Paul Manafort has moved, over his objections, to a new jail with a history of illustrious guests. Officials confirm the former Trump campaign chairman was booked Thursday morning into the Alexandria Detention Center, a complex of low-slung brick buildings just off the Capital Beltway and a few blocks from the federal courthouse where he will be …

We haven’t had a Florida Man story in awhile. Click Orlando reports: Cellphone video and 911 calls leading to the arrest of a Florida man who deputies said chased his neighbor on a tractor were released by the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, News 6 partner WJXT-TV reported. The video, recorded by the neighbor’s wife, who also called 911, ultimately …

Reuters reports: A federal jury in Brooklyn, New York today convicted two men for their roles in an international scheme to make millions of dollars by illegally trading on corporate press releases that were stolen by computer hackers before they became public. Vitaly Korchevsky, a Pennsylvania pastor and former Morgan Stanley (MS.N) vice president, and co-defendant Vladislav Khalupsky were each …

The Associated Press reports: Former state Rep. Oliver Robinson testified Tuesday that he accepted money to oppose federal environmental cleanup efforts in north Birmingham, telling jurors that in doing so that he felt like he sold out the people who had elected him. Robinson, a former basketball star and one-time rising star in the Alabama House of Representatives, took to …