Crime

Dallas’s CBS News affiliate reports: Matt McIlravy formally resigned from his position of Pilot Point mayor this morning after being indicted earlier this week for online solicitation of a child. MacIlravy, a married father of two boys, was arrested on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 in an undercover operation conducted by Dallas police. He is accused of arranging to meet up …

The Albany Times-Union reports: Two brothers who grew up in Warren County in a devout Catholic family allege that Gary Mercure, a former priest in their childhood parish who was later convicted of raping young boys in Massachusetts, had sexually abused them on multiple occasions over a period of years and that ex-Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard took part in …

The Savannah Morning News reports: The FBI on Thursday raided three churches associated with the House of Prayer Christian Church in Georgia and Texas.  The House of Prayer is owned by the foreign nonprofit company House of Prayer Christian Churches of America Inc., which registered with the Georgia Secretary of State in 2004. Its churches, which are primarily located near …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Jurors at a civil trial found Tuesday that Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, and awarded her $500,000. Jurors found that Cosby intentionally caused harmful sexual contact with Huth, that he reasonably …

The Associated Press reports: South Dakota senators on Tuesday begin hearing evidence for the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, whose account of a fatal 2020 traffic accident led criminal investigators, some lawmakers and the victim’s family to question his truthfulness. Ravnsborg, a Republican who only recently announced he wouldn’t seek a second term, faces two charges in the state’s …

Vice News reports: Supermarket workers at stores in the Czech Republic were shocked to find a record haul of cocaine hidden among crates of bananas from Central America. Police said in total staff found 840kg of cocaine wrapped in green packages stuffed in banana crates sent to supermarkets in the towns of Jicin and Rychnov nad Kneznou in the north …

The Associated Press reports: The first lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland since Maine took away a limitation on claims of child sexual abuse were filed on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last year that allowed victims to bring civil lawsuits about older abuse cases. Abuse survivors previously could not bring lawsuits if they experienced …

CBS News reports: Judge Craig Karlan, who had promised one juror when she agreed to serve that she could leave after Friday for a prior commitment, decided over the objections of Cosby’s attorneys to accept and read the verdict on the questions the jury had answered. But he had to change course when deputies required him to clear the courtroom …

The New York Daily News reports: A Florida woman has been busted for pepper-spraying four young Asian women during a caught-on-camera clash in Manhattan, police said Saturday. Cops in Chelsea took Madeline Barker, 47, into custody Friday after they recognized her as the woman in the bias-fueled June 11 attack, a police spokeswoman said. Barker, of Merritt Island, Fla., was …

The CBC reports: A retired priest has been charged with indecent assault in connection with a decade-long RCMP investigation into a Manitoba residential school. Retired Father Arthur Masse, 92, was charged in connection with the sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl, who was a student at the Fort Alexander residential school, northeast of Winnipeg. The alleged assault occurred between 1968 …

CNN reports: Disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti pleaded guilty Thursday to embezzling millions of dollars from four of his clients, taking another step closer toward resolving a flurry of federal charges against him. Judge James Selna set Avenatti’s sentencing for September 19. Avenatti faces a statutory maximum of 83 years in prison, although his sentence would likely fall below the maximum. …

Greensboro’s Fox affiliate reports: A former assistant principal at Union Grove Christian School and pastor has been sentenced to five consecutive 10-12 month sentences in relation to multiple felony counts of sexual activity with a student. On July 11, 2019, Jason Keller was arrested for a series of sex crimes that he committed nearly a decade earlier from 2008 to …

Courthouse News reports: Apple will have to face claims the company profited off of criminal enterprise schemes featuring stolen gift cards after a federal judge declined to dismiss claims the company benefited monetarily from sophisticated schemes that employ fake apps to swindle consumers. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila dismissed some of the claims from a class of plaintiffs that said …

Penn Live reports: A Lancaster County youth pastor was convicted of sexually assaulting two teens after a jury trial last week. Shane Ernest Richardson, 55, was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault of a person younger than 16, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with minors and indecent assault of a person younger than 16. Lancaster Crimewatch reports: In January of …

From the Justice Department: Yesterday, a federal judge in Miami ordered that a Hialeah resident who allegedly submitted more than $4 million in fraudulent health care claims to Medicare be detained pending trial, after the defendant was arrested on board a jet ski headed south from Key West toward Cuba. According to allegations in the criminal complaint, from February through …

The Associated Press reports: A self-published romance novelist who once wrote an online essay called “How to Murder Your Husband” was sentenced Monday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for murdering her husband at his workplace in Portland four years ago. Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was convicted of second-degree murder on May 25 following a seven-week trial. …

Religion News Service reports: One week after members of the Canadian megachurch The Meeting House saw their former pastor arrested and charged with sexual assault, their leadership revealed that not one but four of its former pastors have now been credibly accused — and two convicted — of sexual abuse. At a church town hall-style meeting last week, The Meeting …

Boston’s ABC News affiliate reports: A Massachusetts man is facing multiple charges as he stands accused of intentionally setting a fire at the Satanic Temple in Salem. Salem police said 42-year-old Daniel Damien Lucey, of Chelsea, was arrested late Friday night after a fire was reported at the temple on Bridge Street. According to police, they received numerous 911 calls …

Florence, South Carolina’s ABC affiliate reports: One person has been arrested in connection with threats made to hurt people at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on South Cashua Drive in Florence, according to Florence County Sheriff T.J. Joye. Wayne Anthony Reiser Jr., 39, of Bishopville, is charged with the threatened use of a weapon of mass destruction. Reiser allegedly used a …

From the Justice Department: A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to various charges stemming from his sale of more than $2.7 million worth of various unregistered pesticides to numerous victims based on false representations that these products were registered pesticides with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and on EPA’s “List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2” that EPA deemed to …