Crime

Los Angeles’s CW affiliate reports: A minister and former teacher in Ventura County has been charged with multiple felony counts of child abuse, including accusations that he tried to meet up with a 15-year-old girl for sex. Barry Fike, 67, of Fillmore, was arrested on Monday following an investigation by the Ventura County Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. …

Courthouse News reports: A federal judge on Wednesday denied Paul Pelosi attack suspect David DePape’s request to have his high-profile trial moved from San Francisco to Eureka in extreme northwestern California. DePape, 43, stands accused of breaking into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home this past October and beating her husband, Paul, 83, with a hammer. Police say DePape broke …

Politico reports: A New Jersey man who had his prison sentence commuted by then-President Donald Trump was charged on Wednesday in a new, sophisticated fraud scheme that included falsely promising deals to send supplies to Ukraine. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey charged Eliyahu Weinstein and four others in a plan that allegedly cost investors millions of dollars. Weinstein …

The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune reports: A 33-year-old Wisconsin Rapids man was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for inappropriately touching a child while he was a counselor at a Christian camp. Remington J. Nystrom pleaded no contest to a charge of second-degree sexual assault of a child on April 12, which was the day he was scheduled to …

Courthouse News reports: A court in Romania’s capital on Tuesday ruled to extend by another 30 days the house arrest of Andrew Tate, the divisive social media influencer who is charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The decision at the Bucharest Tribunal comes a month after prosecutors formally indicted the 36-year-old social …

The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports: An East Texas pastor has been arrested on accusations of indecency with a child. Timothy Nall, 68, of Hollylake Ranch, was booked Monday into the Smith County Jail on a charge of indecency with a child by sexual contact. Charges were brought forth by Wood County, according to online jail records. Nall is the pastor …

NBC News reports: A Pennsylvania mother who was known as “Bullhorn Lady” because she used the sound amplifier to instruct rioters at the Capitol was convicted Tuesday of nine federal counts. Rachel Powell was found guilty on a variety of charges, including felony charges of interfering with officers performing their duties and obstruction of an official proceeding. Powell’s bench trial …

From the Justice Department: Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that FRANCIS HUGHES, a former pastor at a religious institution in Queens, New York, was sentenced to five years in prison by U.S. District Judge Philip M. Halpern for his receipt of images of child pornography from a 15-year-old minor in …

Florida Today reports: A father and his son, both pastors at a Melbourne church, and an Indian Harbour Beach repairman were found guilty by a federal jury in connection with their roles in the failed Jan. 6 insurrection. The convictions of James Varnell Cusick Jr. and his son Casey Cusick — leaders of the Melbourne-based Global Outreach Ministries Church — …

The Telegraph reports: Greek police have arrested an Orthodox priest on the island of Rhodes for allegedly molesting a male tourist by “anointing” his genitals with holy oil. The holidaymaker encountered the priest, 49, when he visited a monastery on the island with his girlfriend earlier this week. The priest invited him into a small reception room in the monastery …

NBC News reports: A suspect is in custody in the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island in New York, a law enforcement official and two government officials said today, a case that baffled investigators and captured the country’s attention for more than a decade. The suspect has been identified as Rex Heuermann, 59, four senior law enforcement officials briefed on …

The Associated Press reports: A suspect has been taken into custody on New York’s Long Island in connection with a long-unsolved string of killings, known as the Gilgo Beach murders, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Friday. The case has drawn immense public attention since human remains were found along a New York beach highway more than …

Cleveland.com reports: A Shaker Heights attorney accused of illegally voting in the last two general elections should be acquitted, in part, because he cast ballots in two states by accident, his attorney argued to a judge. James Saunders, a 56-year-old former lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service, did not mean to commit a crime when he cast ballots in both …

Politico reports: U.S. authorities on Thursday arrested Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of failed crypto lending platform Celsius Network, on fraud charges while regulators levied a host of allegations of their own against him and other executives. In the latest sign that the federal crackdown on crypto is still unfolding, prosecutors alleged in a criminal complaint filed in the Southern …

Washington DC’s Fox affiliate reports: Police have arrested and charged a pastor in Montgomery County with rape. According to police, this all stems from an incident on September 29th, 2020, at the Iglesia Pentecostal El Fin Viene on the 7500 block of New Hampshire Ave. in Takoma Park. Serving pastor, 39-year-old Erick Odir Vidal-Fuentes was charged with second-degree rape and …

NBC News reports: A driver who fled a traffic stop near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and fatally struck a pedestrian remains at large, officials said. The driver was in a 2006 blue Honda Accord when uniformed Secret Service officers tried to stop the car at the intersection of 17th Street NW and Constitution Avenue shortly before …

The Guardian reports: The former chaplain of a Roman Catholic high school in Louisiana has pleaded guilty to molesting two minors whom he met through his work and was ordered to spend five years in prison. Patrick Wattigny’s plea and sentence on Wednesday came after both of his victims strongly advocated for a harsher punishment. One victim, who was present, …

The Wichita Falls Times Record News reports: A Wichita County Jury on Wednesday sentenced a former Wichita Falls postal worker and Sunday School teacher to life in prison for urging a 13-year-old girl to give him a “peep show” and take a shower with him. She said there were about 15 such encounters, including incidents in his vehicle where he …

The Fresno Bee reports: A former youth pastor in Kingsburg was sentenced Tuesday to serve one year in prison for having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old church member. Luke Michael Bese, 30, was convicted in May on one felony charge of arranging a meeting with a minor for lewd or lascivious behavior and a misdemeanor charge of annoying, molesting …

Columbus’s PBS affiliate reports: A Licking County man was given a 25-year prison sentence Tuesday in federal court after he was convicted on charges of child sexual exploitation and soliciting child pornography. According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, 27-year-old Matthew Reif, of Newark, victimized at least 52 boys between October 2020 and July 2022. He …