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Tag: Conspiracy

  • Four charged with plotting New Year’s Eve attacks in Southern California, prosecutors say

    Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.Officials also found “Free Palestine” flyers at the desert campsite where the suspects were working with the bomb-making materials.The charges against each suspect include conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. Essayli said additional charges were expected in coming weeks.The four suspects’ attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment, and The Associated Press was unable to reach family members. AP also sent Turtle Island Liberation Front’s social media accounts messages asking for comment but did not get a response.Alleged plot had multiple targetsEssayli said Carroll last month created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve. He declined to name the companies but described them as “Amazon-type” logistical centers.“Carroll’s bomb plot was explicit,” Essayli said. “It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”The plan included planting backpacks filled with complex pipe bombs that were set to be detonated simultaneously at midnight on New Year’s Eve at five locations, according to officials and the criminal complaint. New Year’s Eve was identified as an opportune time in the plan that stated “fireworks will be going off at this time so explosions will be less likely to be noticed,” according to the investigation.The eight-page handwritten plan titled “OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN” stated more locations could be added. The locations were identified as property and facilities operated by two separate companies tied to activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce, according to the complaint.Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in 2026, according to the criminal complaint.Carroll noted “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them,’” according to the complaint.The plans were discussed both at an in-person meeting with members in Los Angeles and through an encrypted messaging app, Essayli said.‘Bomb-making components’ found at campsitePhotos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.The plan included instructions on how to manufacture the bombs and also how to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back to the group, officials said. The suspects recently had acquired precursor chemicals and other items, including purchases from Amazon, according to the complaint.The FBI moved in last week as they rehearsed the attack in the desert near Twentynine Palms, California, officials said.“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” Essayli said.Authorities issued search warrants and found posters for the Turtle Island Liberation Front at Carroll’s home that called for “Death to America,” and “Death to ICE,” Essayli said. In Page’s residence, police found a copy of the detailed bomb plan, he added.Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said while federal and local officials disagree on the Trump administration’s immigration raids, they come together still to protect residents. The LAPD does not stop people or take action for any reason related to immigration status, and it doesn’t enforce immigration laws, a practice that has been in place for 45 years.“The successful disruption of this plot is a powerful testament to the strength of our unified response,” McDonnell said.The suspects were taken into custody without incident. They were scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles Monday afternoon.___Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.

    LOS ANGELES —

    Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.

    The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.

    In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.

    Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.

    The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.

    Officials also found “Free Palestine” flyers at the desert campsite where the suspects were working with the bomb-making materials.

    The charges against each suspect include conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. Essayli said additional charges were expected in coming weeks.

    The four suspects’ attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment, and The Associated Press was unable to reach family members. AP also sent Turtle Island Liberation Front’s social media accounts messages asking for comment but did not get a response.

    Alleged plot had multiple targets

    Essayli said Carroll last month created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve. He declined to name the companies but described them as “Amazon-type” logistical centers.

    “Carroll’s bomb plot was explicit,” Essayli said. “It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”

    The plan included planting backpacks filled with complex pipe bombs that were set to be detonated simultaneously at midnight on New Year’s Eve at five locations, according to officials and the criminal complaint. New Year’s Eve was identified as an opportune time in the plan that stated “fireworks will be going off at this time so explosions will be less likely to be noticed,” according to the investigation.

    The eight-page handwritten plan titled “OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN” stated more locations could be added. The locations were identified as property and facilities operated by two separate companies tied to activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce, according to the complaint.

    Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in 2026, according to the criminal complaint.

    Carroll noted “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them,’” according to the complaint.

    The plans were discussed both at an in-person meeting with members in Los Angeles and through an encrypted messaging app, Essayli said.

    ‘Bomb-making components’ found at campsite

    Photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.

    The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.

    The plan included instructions on how to manufacture the bombs and also how to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back to the group, officials said. The suspects recently had acquired precursor chemicals and other items, including purchases from Amazon, according to the complaint.

    The FBI moved in last week as they rehearsed the attack in the desert near Twentynine Palms, California, officials said.

    “They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” Essayli said.

    Authorities issued search warrants and found posters for the Turtle Island Liberation Front at Carroll’s home that called for “Death to America,” and “Death to ICE,” Essayli said. In Page’s residence, police found a copy of the detailed bomb plan, he added.

    Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said while federal and local officials disagree on the Trump administration’s immigration raids, they come together still to protect residents. The LAPD does not stop people or take action for any reason related to immigration status, and it doesn’t enforce immigration laws, a practice that has been in place for 45 years.

    “The successful disruption of this plot is a powerful testament to the strength of our unified response,” McDonnell said.

    The suspects were taken into custody without incident. They were scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles Monday afternoon.

    ___

    Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.

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  • What Happens When Your School Study Is Actually A Maze? This Moth Saw Brightness Reviewed

    Book Overview: This Moth Saw Brightness

    Content Warnings: mental illness, neurodivergence, abandonment, government experimentation, conspiracy theories

    Summary: A weird and revelatory debut that vividly captures the dislocation of growing up BIPOC and neurodivergent in a country awash in both conspiracy theories and genuine conspiracies.

    “The invisible D in my name is my mother’s second most lasting contribution to my life.”

    ‘Wayne Le—known as “Invisible-D ‘Wayne” at school—has been invited to participate in a seemingly ordinary, innocuous adolescent health study by a prestigious university. The study has a few nice perks, but most important to ‘Wayne, is the opportunity to give his immigrant father an accomplishment to be proud of—something that’s been in short supply since ‘Wayne’s mother left.

    But the study quickly proves to be anything but ordinary and innocuous, and ‘Wayne, his best friend Kermit, and a fellow study participant named Jane (a girl who shall not be manic-pixied) find themselves sucked into an M. C. Escheresque maze of conspiracies that might be entirely in their heads or might truly be a sinister government plot.

    This Moth Saw Brightness By A. A. Vacharat
    Image Source: Photo Courtesy of Penguin Random House

    1. Hooking You Before Page One

    You know what? Sometimes a book arrives and feels like it’s whispering in your ear: “Hey…I’m going to turn your assumptions upside down.” That’s exactly the energy of This Moth Saw Brightness by A. A. Vacharat. From the first line hinting at an “invisible D” in the narrator’s name, the novel signals that it won’t settle for comfortable. It invites you into a story that’s part coming-of-age, part speculative thriller, part identity essay, and yes, you’re going to like the ride!

    2. Who’s Narrating This Train-Wreck Disguised As Adolescence

    Meet Wayne Le, or “Invisible-D ‘Wayne,” as the school calls him. He’s BIPOC, neurodivergent (or at least navigating life in ways that don’t match the “neurotypical” checklist), and he’s invited to participate in a so-called innocuous adolescent health study by a prestigious university. The study promises perks: a chance to give his immigrant father something to be proud of, a small win in a life defined by absence (his mother leaving) and expectation. But things go off the rails fast.

    3. Weirdness And Conspiracies: High School Meets M.C. Escher

    Here’s where the plot takes the weird turn: the study is anything but ordinary. ‘Wayne, his best friend Kermit, and Jane (yes, a girl “who shall not be manic-pixied”) find themselves in an Escher-cornucopia of conspiracies; overlapping, bending reality, maybe in their heads, maybe not. The narrative feels breathing, alive, slightly off-kilter…in a good way.

    4. Identity, Neurodivergence And That Immigrant-Dad Pressure

    Beyond the twists and conspiracies, there’s the muscle of the story. What does it feel like to grow up neurodivergent in a world that assumes you’re “just like everyone else?” What does it mean to carry the weight of immigrant expectations on your shoulders when your mother has already left, when your father’s pride is something you chase? The “invisible D” in his name? Symbolic. His sense of invisibility? Real. Vacharat doesn’t shy away from those questions, and she doesn’t answer them neatly. That feels honest.

    5. The Tone: Quirky, Clever, And Zipping Along

    If you expect a straight-laced narrative, you’ll be surprised. The tone flicks between sardonic, anxious, reflective, bizarre, like life when you’re awake in the middle of a strange dream and someone hands you a biology textbook. The novel rewards readers who enjoy short chapters, playful breaks, and surprising shifts in rhythm. One moment you’re thinking of high school drama, next you’re wondering about Big Tech, surveillance, and your own concept of control. The result? You won’t just read this book, you’ll feel its pulse!

    6. Relatable Chaos: Friendships, Crushes, Awkwardness

    Despite the grand themes, the story keeps it grounded in adolescence. There’s the best friend who still codes and hacks (hello, Kermit). There’s the crush who complicates everything (hello, Jane). There’s the parent who expects too much, and the absence of the parent who left. There’s the feeling that you’re slightly off-center and everyone else is lining up like they know what’s going on. If you’ve ever felt side-lined, weirded out, or “why am I not normal?”, then ‘Wayne’s story will resonate. The conspiracies become metaphors for the nagging sense that the world is rigged, and you’re trying to find your spot in it.

    7. Why You Should Care (And Maybe Freak Out A Little)

    Because this book doesn’t just entertain. It pushes you. It asks: What is trust? What is identity? Who decides who matters? And in a world full of surveillance, half-truths, and algorithms, how do you even locate your own truth? Vacharat wraps it all in genre elements: thriller, mystery, coming-of-age, so you’re on your toes the whole time. The ending? It’s unsettling. Not because it’s bad. Because it leaves you thinking. Hey, that’s a win!

    8. The Caveats (Yes, There Are A Few)

    If you like your stories tidy, you might bristle at the sharp corners here. The plot layers move fast, and some minor characters veer into caricature. But honestly…the messiness is part of the point. Life is messy. Identity is messy. Conspiracies? Definitely messy. If you’re up for the ride, you’ll be fine.

    9. Final Verdict

    In short: This Moth Saw Brightness is weird, wild, heartfelt, and smart. It’s a debut that doesn’t play it safe. It introduces a narrator you’ll root for, a world you’ll question, and a genre-blend that sticks with you. If you’re looking for a book that lingers after you close the cover, that challenges you while making you laugh (and maybe wince), this is it!

    A. A. Vacharat’s This Moth Saw Brightness quietly teaches you that sometimes the conspiracy is simply that you were never invited to believe you belonged.

    If you enjoyed this review, grab a copy of the book, let those footnotes surprise you, and let the conspiracies swirl! Because the brightest lights sometimes hide behind the weirdest moths. What are your thoughts on This Moth Saw Brightness? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments below or over on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook!

    TO LEARN MORE ABOUT A. A. VACHARAT:
    INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | WEBSITE

    Want more book reviews? Check out our library!

    Asia M.

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  • Private investigators tried to bribe sex assault victim of former Stockton officer, DA says

    Two private investigators are accused of tampering with an investigation into a sexual assault case against a former Stockton police officer and attempting to bribe a victim, according to the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office.Officials said Mary Greenberg, 62, and Kramer Greenberg, 34, a mother and daughter, were both licensed private investigators working on behalf of former Stockton Police Department Sergeant Nicholas Bloed. Earlier this year, Bloed was sentenced to eight years in prison for using his position of authority to sexually assault four different women. The district attorney’s office said the Greenbergs allegedly offered one of Bloed’s victims an undisclosed amount of money paid in installments in order for her to be unavailable to testify during the trial. The mother and daughter arranged for transportation for the victim to Southern California. But instead of following the direction of Mary and Kramer Greenberg, the victim contacted the District Attorney’s Office. “There will be zero tolerance for anyone attempting to interfere with the administration of justice in San Joaquin County,” said District Attorney Ron Freitas in a news release. “Anyone attempting to prevent and interfere with the prosecution of criminals that have terrorized the victims of San Joaquin County, will absolutely be met with the full force of this District Attorney’s Office.”Mary Greenberg faces charges of preventing/dissuading a witness from attending or giving testimony, attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying, conspiracy to commit a crime, attending and giving testimony at a proceeding authorized by law, bribery of a witness and offer to bribe a witness. Kramer Greenberg faces charges of preventing/dissuading a witness from attending or giving testimony, conspiracy to commit a crime and attending and giving testimony at a proceeding authorized by law.Anyone with any information about witness tampering or intimidation in this, or any other case, is urged to contact the District Attorney’s Office Bureau of Investigations at 209-468-3620.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, Calif. —

    Two private investigators are accused of tampering with an investigation into a sexual assault case against a former Stockton police officer and attempting to bribe a victim, according to the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office.

    Officials said Mary Greenberg, 62, and Kramer Greenberg, 34, a mother and daughter, were both licensed private investigators working on behalf of former Stockton Police Department Sergeant Nicholas Bloed.

    Earlier this year, Bloed was sentenced to eight years in prison for using his position of authority to sexually assault four different women.

    The district attorney’s office said the Greenbergs allegedly offered one of Bloed’s victims an undisclosed amount of money paid in installments in order for her to be unavailable to testify during the trial. The mother and daughter arranged for transportation for the victim to Southern California.

    But instead of following the direction of Mary and Kramer Greenberg, the victim contacted the District Attorney’s Office.

    “There will be zero tolerance for anyone attempting to interfere with the administration of justice in San Joaquin County,” said District Attorney Ron Freitas in a news release. “Anyone attempting to prevent and interfere with the prosecution of criminals that have terrorized the victims of San Joaquin County, will absolutely be met with the full force of this District Attorney’s Office.”

    Mary Greenberg faces charges of preventing/dissuading a witness from attending or giving testimony, attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying, conspiracy to commit a crime, attending and giving testimony at a proceeding authorized by law, bribery of a witness and offer to bribe a witness.

    Kramer Greenberg faces charges of preventing/dissuading a witness from attending or giving testimony, conspiracy to commit a crime and attending and giving testimony at a proceeding authorized by law.

    Anyone with any information about witness tampering or intimidation in this, or any other case, is urged to contact the District Attorney’s Office Bureau of Investigations at 209-468-3620.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • ‘It’s too close for comfort’: Texts show Marcos Lopez’s alleged role in gambling operation

    Arrest documents for former Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez were released Friday and detail his alleged role in a gambling operation.Lopez was arrested on June 5 and faces charges of one count of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. The affidavit includes a screen grab of a text message Lopez sent to co-defendant Ying “Kate” Zhang in September 2019. Investigators describe Zhang, a Chinese-born realtor, as “an investor and co-business owner” in the illegal enterprise.Lopez wrote in a text message, “Kate, nothing to worry. No matter what the outcome is, when I win, we start the first internet amusement cafe in Osceola County. You will be safe and not have to worry about anything because I will be your sheriff.”According to the affidavit, Lopez introduced Zhang to Krishna Deokaran in August 2019 at the Player’s Club in Leesburg. Investigators describe Deokaran as being at the helm of the operation, owning casinos in Lake County and the Eclipse Social Club. Zhang has not been arrested, and a source told WESH 2 Investigates she is believed to have fled the country.When Deokaran suggested opening a gambling business near the Osceola Sheriff’s Office on State Road 192, investigators say Lopez replied, “No, that can’t work because it’s too close for comfort.” Eventually, investigators say Lopez connected Deokaran with what would become the Eclipse site, later texting, “We did a raid. I shut the place down. It’s ours.”After the casino opened at this location in Kissimmee, an anonymous tip led investigators to discover the TikTok page openly advertising slot machines and fish tables.In proffer interviews with investigators, Deokaran admitted paying Lopez cash each time they met — anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000 — totaling between $600,000 and $700,000. The payments, prosecutors allege, were for securing the site, alerting the operation of possible task force investigations and keeping deputies away.Deokaran has forfeited nearly $1 million in Osceola and Orange counties after raids shut down his illegal casinos, but he has not been arrested.Court records show Deokaran’s admissions came as part of a proffer agreement, in which defendants may receive reduced charges or a plea deal in exchange for cooperation. Jose Rivas, a defense attorney not representing anyone in this case, said, “Well, it’s the big fish when it comes because he’s running the organization. But at the same time, what the government is really after is the public official which is Marcos Lopez.”The affidavit reveals Deokaran cooperated with investigators during proffer interviews. Rivas explained, “A proffer is what we call a snitch session. You know, pretty much in more formal terms. It’s when someone provides what we call substantial assistance.”The affidavit calls the former sheriff a “protector and beneficiary of the illicit operation,” and says he: played a multifaceted role in the expansion and protection of the enterprisejoined for political campaign contributions and personal payment pledged to use his anticipated elected sheriff’s title to shield the enterprise from law enforcement scrutiny recruited new members, secured leases for new locationsOfficials were tipped off in September of 2022 that the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee was operating as a casino with Las Vegas-style machines, the affidavit says. In July 2023, an agent went undercover into the establishment where people had to ring a bell and get through security and a locked door to enter. Lopez’s defense team of attorneys, Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez, sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:”In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”See the full documents below. Background Lopez was accused of engaging in the gambling operation for campaign contributions and personal payments. In total, investigators said the organization generated over $21.6 million in illicit proceeds.Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Lopez from his position as sheriff and appointed an interim sheriff, Christopher Blackmon.His bond was set at $1 million, and he pleaded not guilty to the charges.One week after Lopez was booked into the Lake County Jail, WESH 2 Investigates learned a multi-agency raid in 2024 shut down the casino at the center of the state’s racketeering case.On June 23, Robin Severance Lopez, the suspended sheriff’s estranged wife, was arrested. She is charged with conspiracy to use investment proceeds from racketeering. Marcos Lopez bonded out of jail on June 26. He has pleaded not guilty.Lopez’s defense team of attorneys Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:”In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”Arrest docsTimeline

    Arrest documents for former Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez were released Friday and detail his alleged role in a gambling operation.

    Lopez was arrested on June 5 and faces charges of one count of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering.

    The affidavit includes a screen grab of a text message Lopez sent to co-defendant Ying “Kate” Zhang in September 2019. Investigators describe Zhang, a Chinese-born realtor, as “an investor and co-business owner” in the illegal enterprise.

    Lopez wrote in a text message, “Kate, nothing to worry. No matter what the outcome is, when I win, we start the first internet amusement cafe in Osceola County. You will be safe and not have to worry about anything because I will be your sheriff.”

    According to the affidavit, Lopez introduced Zhang to Krishna Deokaran in August 2019 at the Player’s Club in Leesburg. Investigators describe Deokaran as being at the helm of the operation, owning casinos in Lake County and the Eclipse Social Club. Zhang has not been arrested, and a source told WESH 2 Investigates she is believed to have fled the country.

    When Deokaran suggested opening a gambling business near the Osceola Sheriff’s Office on State Road 192, investigators say Lopez replied, “No, that can’t work because it’s too close for comfort.”

    Eventually, investigators say Lopez connected Deokaran with what would become the Eclipse site, later texting, “We did a raid. I shut the place down. It’s ours.”

    After the casino opened at this location in Kissimmee, an anonymous tip led investigators to discover the TikTok page openly advertising slot machines and fish tables.

    In proffer interviews with investigators, Deokaran admitted paying Lopez cash each time they met — anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000 — totaling between $600,000 and $700,000.

    The payments, prosecutors allege, were for securing the site, alerting the operation of possible task force investigations and keeping deputies away.

    Deokaran has forfeited nearly $1 million in Osceola and Orange counties after raids shut down his illegal casinos, but he has not been arrested.

    Court records show Deokaran’s admissions came as part of a proffer agreement, in which defendants may receive reduced charges or a plea deal in exchange for cooperation.

    Jose Rivas, a defense attorney not representing anyone in this case, said, “Well, it’s the big fish when it comes because he’s running the organization. But at the same time, what the government is really after is the public official which is Marcos Lopez.”

    The affidavit reveals Deokaran cooperated with investigators during proffer interviews. Rivas explained, “A proffer is what we call a snitch session. You know, pretty much in more formal terms. It’s when someone provides what we call substantial assistance.”

    The affidavit calls the former sheriff a “protector and beneficiary of the illicit operation,” and says he:

    • played a multifaceted role in the expansion and protection of the enterprise
    • joined for political campaign contributions and personal payment
    • pledged to use his anticipated elected sheriff’s title to shield the enterprise from law enforcement scrutiny
    • recruited new members, secured leases for new locations

    WESH 2 News

    Arrest docs detail former Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez’s alleged role in gambling operation

    Officials were tipped off in September of 2022 that the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee was operating as a casino with Las Vegas-style machines, the affidavit says.

    In July 2023, an agent went undercover into the establishment where people had to ring a bell and get through security and a locked door to enter.

    Lopez’s defense team of attorneys, Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez, sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:

    “In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.

    It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”

    See the full documents below.

    Background

    Lopez was accused of engaging in the gambling operation for campaign contributions and personal payments.

    In total, investigators said the organization generated over $21.6 million in illicit proceeds.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Lopez from his position as sheriff and appointed an interim sheriff, Christopher Blackmon.

    His bond was set at $1 million, and he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    One week after Lopez was booked into the Lake County Jail, WESH 2 Investigates learned a multi-agency raid in 2024 shut down the casino at the center of the state’s racketeering case.

    On June 23, Robin Severance Lopez, the suspended sheriff’s estranged wife, was arrested.

    She is charged with conspiracy to use investment proceeds from racketeering.

    Marcos Lopez bonded out of jail on June 26. He has pleaded not guilty.

    Lopez’s defense team of attorneys Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:

    “In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.

    It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”

    Arrest docs

    Timeline

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  • Prosecutors’ ‘Cop City’ case collapses as judge tosses Rico conspiracy charges

    Georgia prosecutors are facing what one expert called “probably the highest-profile failure of using conspiracy charges to indict a protest movement” in US history, after a two-year attempt to prosecute a criminal conspiracy in connection with opposition to the police training center known as Cop City.

    Fulton county superior court Judge Kevin Farmer announced his decision to dismiss charges against the case’s 61 defendants during hearings this week on a handful of defense attorney motions.

    The hearings came after several years of delays in the case centered on Rico, a law created to go after the mafia and usually associated with organized crime, not protest movements. Farmer’s decision responded to a motion filed on behalf of defendant Thomas Jurgens, an attorney acting as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild at a music festival on 5 March 2023 in a forested public park near the police training center site.

    Jurgens was one of dozens arrested that day and charged in connection with damage done to construction machinery at the site.

    After an hour-plus of discussion in this week’s hearing, Farmer came back from a break and used only 18 words to stymie the state’s prosecution, nearly three years after arrests: “At this time I do not find the attorney general had the authority to bring this Rico case.”

    The decision dismisses charges in 100 pages of the state’s 109–page indictment. It also covers one count of arson against five defendants, and the judge is expected to issue a separate ruling on domestic terrorism charges against the same five defendants.

    Farmer said he will soon issue the orders in writing.

    The state has announced its intention to appeal. “The attorney general will continue the fight against domestic terrorists and violent criminals who want to destroy life and property,” Georgia attorney general Chris Carr’s office said in a statement.

    Carr is running for governor of Georgia in next year’s race.

    Opposition to the $109m center, which opened this spring, has come from a wide range of local and national organizations and protesters, and is centered on concerns around police militarization and clearing forests in an era of climate crisis. Atlanta police say the center is needed for “world-class” training and to attract new officers.

    This week’s decision “exposes that the indictment was fundamentally flawed from the outset”, said Brad Thomson, one of the case’s dozens of defense attorneys and a member of the People’s Law Office, a Chicago-based civil rights firm.

    Farmer’s ruling from the bench was based on Carr’s office having pursued the case after district attorneys for Dekalb and Fulton counties had declined to do so. This was an action for which the state had no authority, and for which the attorney general would have required special permission from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, the judge said. No such permission was sought or given.

    The decision shows “what critics said all along – that the state of Georgia was in such a rush and panic to stop the ‘Stop Cop City’ movement that they violated their own rules,” said social movement historian Dan Berger. “They acted inappropriately and without justification, to bring what seemed from the beginning as dramatically overblown and patently absurd charges.”

    Although certainly the most dramatic, the state’s procedural negligence leading to the judge’s decision was not the only example of prosecutorial sloppiness during the last two years.

    Deputy attorney general John Fowler, the case’s lead prosecutor, was found last year to have obtained emails between defendants and their attorneys, then including them in discovery materials and sharing them with police investigators, thereby violating attorney-client privilege.

    Fowler also denied in court that police sent messages about Cop City using Signal, despite being presented, in another motion from defense attorneys, with evidence from the Guardian of law enforcement leadership ordering officers last year to download the encrypted phone app for that very purpose.

    At one point this week, the judge noted that he had read all the defense’s motions, but had received no responses from the state. “I have nothing to read from the state – and it’s been two years,” Farmer said.

    Representing members of Atlanta Solidarity Fund – a bail fund whose three members are mentioned more than 120 times in the indictment – veteran attorney Donald Samuel told the judge this week, “the [criminal] enterprise is defined as a movement – can you imagine that? The civil rights movement would be defined as an enterprise according to the attorney general!”

    Joseph Brown, a political scientist who has written about the movement against Cop City, said that Georgia “was so hellbent on criminalizing a protest movement that was strong, resilient and popularly-supported … [it] decided to use the law as a political tool.”

    Brown compared the case to the so-called J20 protesters, more than 200 of whom were arrested at a 2017 protest in Washington, targeting Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration. They faced felony riot and conspiracy charges of conspiracy. In a case drawn out over more than a year, the state was found to have withheld evidence as well as committing other irregularities. Ultimately, nearly all the cases were dismissed, and only one person served jail time.

    “We see examples of prosecutorial overreach in highly politicized cases,” Brown said.

    Farmer’s decision makes the Cop City case “probably the highest-profile failure of using conspiracy charges to indict a protest movement”, he added.

    Brown said the two cases also have in common that defendants stuck together, and didn’t “point fingers” at each other for plea deals. “In a political movement” like this, he said, “people care about each other”.

    Will Potter, author of the recently released Little Red Barns, a decade-long investigation of factory farms and fascism, said the lessons of the case could be important under Trump’s second term, which has seen the US slide towards authoritarianism.

    “The playbook–stretching laws like Rico to cast dissent as organized crime won’t vanish, especially amid a surge of authoritarian and openly fascist politics,” Potter said.

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  • GirlsDoPorn.Com owner sentenced 27 years for sex trafficking conspiracy

    Michael James Pratt. (FILE photo courtesy of the FBI)

    The owner of the San Diego-based GirlsDoPorn.com website, which featured pornographic videos of young women who were forced or coerced into appearing in the films under false pretenses, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison Monday.

    Michael James Pratt, described by prosecutors as “the ringleader in a wide-ranging sex-trafficking conspiracy” surrounding the now-defunct website, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

    Prosecutors said the website’s operators led women to believe the videos in which they appeared would be distributed only to private customers living outside of the country and that their identities would not be exposed. But the goal was always to post the videos on the internet as part of the scheme, which netted Pratt “millions of dollars in profit,” prosecutors said.

    Victims were given false promises by Pratt and other GirlsDoPorn.com employees, which included “reference girls” who falsely assured victims that they had participated in past videos that were never posted online.

    After their videos were posted and proliferated to their family, friends, and employers, many of the women said they pleaded with GirlsDoPorn’s leadership to take down their videos, but their requests were refused or ignored.

    U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino sentenced Pratt to more than the nearly 22 years requested by federal prosecutors due to what she said was “the sheer scope and magnitude of this offense.”

    Pratt’s sentencing hearing spanned nearly six hours and featured testimonials from almost 40 victims, including the mother of a young woman who died of a drug overdose in the years after her video was released. Victims who spoke Monday said at least 15 women they knew who appeared in GirlsDoPorn videos have since died from suicide or other causes.

    Many of the women said they have spent years and countless amounts of money trying to scrub evidence of their videos from the internet, with little to no success.

    “The scariest part is the internet doesn’t forget,” one woman said.

    Numerous victims said those videos were re-posted by people online featuring their full names and other personal identifying information, leading to an onslaught of harassment that follows them to this day.

    One woman said that just when she thought she’d escaped the specter of the video filmed over a decade ago, screenshots of it resurfaced on the social media page of her new job, leading her to quit. Several said that people in their lives who discovered their videos — including former friends and co- workers — have attempted to blackmail them in exchange for their silence.

    Victims spoke of legally changing their names and surgically altering their appearances to avoid recognition. Many said they turned to self- medication with drugs and/or alcohol, and spoke of suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts.

    Prosecutors say Pratt was the mastermind behind the coercive scheme and had a hands-on role in creating the videos, including sometimes manning the camera, recruiting women who appeared in videos, and transporting the women to and from video shoots.

    After victims were flown out to San Diego — where the majority of the website’s content was filmed — they were presented with contracts that concealed the true purpose of the scheme, prosecutors said. Rather than stating the videos were for GirlsDoPorn, the companies were referred to as Bubblegum Casting, BLL Media, or other innocuous, misleading names.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office said some victims were told they could be sued or their flights home canceled if they didn’t complete the videos, and that the doors at video shoot locations were often blocked by cameras and recording equipment, leaving the victims feeling “powerless and unable to leave.”

    Defense attorney Brian White conceded in his sentencing papers that Pratt misled the women about where their videos would end up.

    “Mr. Pratt now recognizes those misrepresentations were reckless, fraudulent, and ultimately harmful to many women,” White wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

    However, he argued that Pratt was not involved with any mistreatment of victims during the video shoots and stated he took measures to ensure safety during filming.

    The defense filing also alleged that “erratic and unpredictable” conduct from porn actor Ruben Andre Garcia — who was in all the videos involving the victims in the case — was unknown to Pratt, such as providing alcohol and marijuana to the women or engaging in “`extracurricular’ contact with the models.”

    Several victims pushed back on that claim though. One woman said that during the filming of her video, she begged Pratt to halt the video shoot, but he refused.

    White also wrote that doorways at the filming locations were not intentionally barricaded, but that the rooms were merely cramped and offered little to no room to store the equipment.

    “There was no intention to block access to the door, it was simply a convenient place to store the empty crates and boxes during filming,” the memorandum states.

    White wrote that Pratt made efforts to protect women’s identities from being publicly released after a website was launched by another person, which exposed many of the victims’ names. The attorney wrote that Pratt purchased the site with the intention of shutting it down.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Foster said that whatever Pratt’s intention, he continued to recruit women for GirlsDoPorn while knowing their identities weren’t being safeguarded and continued to lie to them about the videos going online.

    Along with criminal charges, the website’s operators were sued by 22 women featured in the videos, including several who spoke Monday. The civil lawsuit led to a nearly $13 million verdict against GirlsDoPorn in early 2020.

    Pratt left the country after the civil trial got underway. After criminal charges were filed, Pratt spent more than three years on the lam, and was at one time on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list. He was arrested in Spain in late 2022.

    Pratt is among the last GirlsDoPorn employees to be sentenced in the long-running criminal case.

    Sammartino has sentenced several of his co-defendants, including Garcia, who received a 20-year sentence, Pratt’s ex-business partner, Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who was sentenced to 14 years, and camera operator Theodore Gyi, who was sentenced to four years in prison.

    Another co-defendant, Alexander Brian Foster, was sentenced to one year in prison for creating a video meant to harass and publicly identify the 22 women who sued GirlsDoPorn. Prosecutors said the video –which was never completed or released — was made at Pratt’s direction, and that he instructed Foster to include video clips of the women’s videotaped depositions from the civil case, their Instagram posts and video footage of them leaving the courthouse.

    Later this week, GirlsDoPorn bookkeeper Valorie Moser is scheduled to be sentenced. Prosecutors say Moser largely performed administrative tasks for the company, but was aware of the trafficking scheme and attempted to recruit models for the website.

    Another defendant, Douglas Wiederhold, also awaits sentencing later this year. According to his plea agreement, Wiederhold appeared as a male actor in 71 GirlsDoPorn videos and also falsely assured at least two women that their videos wouldn’t be posted online after knowing other women’s videos had already been uploaded to the internet.

    The website’s activities also spurred dual lawsuits from more than 100 women against the parent company for porn-streaming site PornHub for profiting off of GirlsDoPorn’s trafficking by hosting its videos. The company reached settlements with the women in both lawsuits and also agreed to pay over $1.8 million to resolve a probe by federal prosecutors who alleged the company knew or should have known it was accepting money that originated from sex- trafficking operations.

    — City News Service


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  • Third suspect arrested and charged in the 2017 stabbing death of hairdressing mogul

    Third suspect arrested and charged in the 2017 stabbing death of hairdressing mogul

    Authorities say they have arrested the mystery man who allegedly teamed up with an accomplice to fatally stab famed hairstylist Fabio Sementilli seven years ago at a Woodland Hills mansion.

    Prosecutors allege Christopher Austin was the second man involved in the killing, along with the lover of Sementilli’s wife.

    Austin was recently arrested in connection with the killing and extradited from Washington state. On Oct. 18, after being sent back to Los Angeles, Austin pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder with the special allegations of the use of a deadly weapon, and pleaded not guilty Wednesday to an additional charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

    The 38-year-old Austin, prosecutors allege, conspired with Monica Sementilli, the hairstylist’s wife, and her lover Robert Louis Baker in January 2017 to kill her husband as part of a scheme to pocket his $1.6 million in life insurance. Austin’s alleged conspirators have been behind bars for more than five years, but until recently Austin’s identity and whereabouts had been unknown.

    Sementilli was the father of three and an executive at the hair-care giant Wella.

    Baker, 62, last year admitted that he killed the celebrity hairdresser on Jan. 23, 2017, leaving him in a pool of blood on a back patio in what was initially thought to be a home-invasion robbery gone wrong. Baker is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

    Six months after the killing, Los Angeles police detectives arrested Baker and Monica Sementilli, revealing that they had been in a relationship for 18 months. Baker, a convicted sex offender, met her at LA Fitness, where he was a racquetball instructor.

    Baker, after admitting to the crime, has said that Monica Sementilli did not know about the murder plot. Prosecutors and LAPD investigators contend that extensive evidence shows she was tied to the killing.

    Monica Sementilli’s trial is pending, and she and Baker have been held in the Los Angeles County jail system for more than five years. She had pleaded not guilty, and her attorney, Leonard Levine, said that she was falsely accused and that Baker will testify to that.

    Her trial has been postponed a few times, and the arrest of Austin could change the dynamics. Prosecutors allege that Baker stabbed the hairstylist several times with a knife and that Austin stabbed the victim in the neck with a knife.

    Baker is alleged to have told Austin that the victim’s wife wanted to get her husband’s life insurance money. As part of the conspiracy alleged by prosecutors, Baker gave Austin money to buy a ticket to fly from Anchorage to Los Angeles and a roll of gold coins after the slaying, according to the complaint.

    Austin was arrested in Washington state and extradited to L.A. County, where he is being held on more than $2 million bail pending a Dec. 2 court appearance.

    Initially, when LAPD responded to the home and found Sementilli stabbed to death, investigators considered it to be the work of knock-knock burglars who plagued parts of San Fernando Valley.

    But though the home’s master bedroom was ransacked, the assailants never took the hair mogul’s valuable watch on his wrist, piquing the interest of detectives, said then-Robbery Homicide Division Capt. Billy Hayes. Security surveillance video showed two hooded men jogging up to the home before the slaying. Afterward, the men drove away in Sementilli’s Porsche and were recorded on another surveillance camera as they abandoned the vehicle five miles away.

    In an apparent attempt to cover up their actions, the two men took a video recording system hidden in the garage of Sementilli’s home that captured video from six cameras around the house, prosecutors said.

    Detectives closed in on Baker after discovering blood in the abandoned Porsche. His DNA had previously been captured after he was convicted of a lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in 1993 and forced to register as a sex offender, Hayes said at the time.

    Prosecutors alleged Monica Sementilli told Baker how to remove the home’s video recording system. They presented evidence that she watched a live feed of the area shortly before the killing to ensure Baker had a clear path to her husband. Prosecutors alleged that she also let her 16-year-old daughter come home first and discover the crime scene.

    “Monica fully intended for Fabio to be murdered,” Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman told a grand jury in 2017. “She wanted him out of the way because she wants to be with Robert Baker. She’s unhappy in her marriage, even though at the same time she’s acting like the loving, adoring wife.”

    Baker pleaded no contest in July 2023 to one count each of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He also admitted the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.

    One of Monica Sementilli’s attorneys, Leonard Levine, told reporters after Baker’s plea that the defense was confident that his plea and his “truthful testimony will finally establish once and for all that Monica Sementilli had nothing to do with the planning or the murder of Fabio Sementilli, her husband. And we’re looking forward to the trial, which we believe will establish that fact.’’

    Richard Winton

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  • Matthew Perry investigation: What we know about the people charged in his death

    Matthew Perry investigation: What we know about the people charged in his death

    Two doctors and a live-in personal assistant to Matthew Perry are among the people charged following a months-long investigation into how the prescription drug ketamine that contributed to the actor’s death was procured.

    Prosecutors on Thursday charged five people in connection with the death of the “Friends” star, who was found dead in the hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28. Trace amounts of ketamine — which is sometimes used to treat depression — were found in his stomach, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

    But the level found in his blood was about the same as would be used during general anesthesia, his autopsy showed.

    Since then, authorities have been working to determine how Perry got the drug, which caused cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression. Ketamine is a legal medication commonly used as an anesthetic, but it can be abused recreationally, with users drawn to it for its disassociative effects.

    The Times reported in June that investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Service had linked several people to procurement of the ketamine.

    The named defendants in the case include two physicians, Perry’s live-in personal assistant who authorities say injected him with ketamine and a dealer dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” by federal agents.

    Here’s what we know about the people named in the indictment, which was unsealed Thursday:

    Narcotics including methamphetamine and ketamine were seized in a raid on Jasveen Sangha’s North Hollywood home on March 19. Sangha, dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” by investigators, is charged in the death of actor Matthew Perry.

    (U.S. District Court)

    Sangha was arrested in March on narcotics charges and posted a $100,000 bond in a separate case.

    During a raid at Sangha’s home on March 19, authorities seized 1,978 grams of methamphetamine pills, 79 bottles of liquid ketamine, 2,127 grams of pills suspected of being Xanax, 323 grams of a substance suspected of being psilocybin mushrooms and 128 grams of suspected cocaine, according to federal prosecutors. Authorities also found a journal in her home that detailed thousands of dollars in drug transactions, according to Thursday’s indictment.

    Prosecutors say that Perry was not the only victim who overdosed on Sangha’s product.

    In August 2019, she sold ketamine to Cody McLaury hours before his death. One of McLaury’s family members texted Sangha: “The ketamine you sold my brother killed him. It’s listed as the cause of death,” according to court records.

    Days later, according to the records, Sangha searched on Google, “can ketamine be listed as a cause of death[?]”

    Nathan Solis

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  • O.J. Simpson’s death certificate confirms his cause of death, lawyer says

    O.J. Simpson’s death certificate confirms his cause of death, lawyer says

    O.J. Simpson’s death certificate released this week confirms he died of prostate cancer at his home in Las Vegas, his attorney told The Times.

    Attorney Malcolm LaVergne said on Saturday the Clark County, Nev.-issued death certificate “just confirms what I think most people widely suspected anyway — it was prostate cancer. No other causes listed.”

    Simpson’s family previously said on the social media platform X that the 76-year-old had died of cancer April 10.

    Simpson, a former football star, was acquitted in the 1994 deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman in a criminal court. A civil court jury later found him liable for the deaths.

    He served nine years of a 33-year sentence following his 2008 conviction on armed robbery, kidnapping, conspiracy and other charges stemming from his attempt to recover memorabilia he claimed had been stolen from him. His incarceration was widely viewed as overdue punishment for the slayings of Simpson and Goldman.

    Simpson announced in a May 2023 social media post that he had an unspecified type of cancer. In two videos posted in February, Simpson reassured his followers that he was healthy.

    In a Feb. 9 video, Simpson denied he was in hospice care. In a video posted two days later, he said his health was “good.”

    “Obviously, I’m dealing with some issues, but I think I’m just about over it, and I’ll be back on that golf course, hopefully, in a couple of weeks,” he said, seated in a chair by a pool.

    About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. Prostate cancer risk is higher in African American men and in Caribbean men of African ancestry than in men of other races.

    Rebecca Plevin

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  • How the Baltimore bridge collapse spawned a torrent of instant conspiracy theories

    How the Baltimore bridge collapse spawned a torrent of instant conspiracy theories

    BALTIMORE — Even before most Americans woke up Tuesday morning to news of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, wild conspiracy theories about what supposedly had “really” happened were running rampant online.

    The claims ranged from a cyber-attack or a ship captain impaired by side effects from COVID-19 vaccines being responsible for the crash – to claims that Israel, or even the Obamas had something to do with the bridge’s collapse.

    All of these claims are entirely baseless. Officials investigating the crash said early on that there was no indication it was a deliberate act.

    But that didn’t stop conspiracy theories from spreading rapidly across the internet, generating tens of millions of views on social media even as dive teams crews were conducting search and rescue operations. In just a few hours an entire alternate reality, devoid of facts, had been created around the bridge’s collapse.

    RELATED: TIMELINE: Investigators reveal timeline of events leading up to ship crash

    It is a stark reminder of the erosion of trust among Americans in major institutions, particularly government and media, and the perverse online incentive structures that reward the sharing of misinformation.

    Cataclysmic events that capture the nation’s attention have always prompted a deluge of alternative theories that challenge or contradict the facts or broadly accepted version of events.

    What makes this moment in American history different is the capacity for known peddlers of disinformation to immediately flood the zone with objectively false information, thanks in part to the lack of robust fact-checking operations at social media companies including Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.

    It is entirely possibly that millions of Americans encountered false claims about the bridge collapse when they woke up Tuesday morning before ever seeing the facts.

    “In many ways, the Baltimore bridge conspiracies serve as a canary in the coalmine for how election conspiracies will emerge on social media in the leadup to November,” said Ben Decker, CEO of Memetica, a company that tracks misinformation online.

    The usual suspects

    Soon after 7 a.m. EST, on Tuesday, less than six hours after the bridge collapsed, Andrew Tate, an online provocateur with more than 9 million followers on X, posted, without offering a shred of evidence, that the ship had been “cyber-attacked” and was deliberately steered toward the bridge.

    “Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures,” he added.

    Tate, who is known for his misogynistic posts, is currently awaiting trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking and rape. After that trial he is expected to be extradited to the United Kingdom to face sex offense charges. He denies all charges.

    By Wednesday, Tate’s tweet had been seen more than 18.5 million times on X, according to the company’s own data.

    Under Elon Musk, X has touted community notes as a way for its community to fact-check itself. The note that showed under Tate’s tweet for some of Tuesday meekly described his statement as “speculation.” By Wednesday morning, the note was updated to state Tate’s post was “misleading.” By Wednesday evening, the note said in part that, “readers should be aware this is a personal opinion being portrayed as factual.”

    RELATED: Baltimore bridge collapse probe moves from recovery mode to salvage operation, 4 still missing

    Regardless, Tate’s post helped set the tone for the day’s alternate reality.

    Two hours after Tate’s post, Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones posted the video of the bridge collapse on Tuesday and commented, “Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started.”

    Jones and other doomsday peddlers have for years tried to convince their audiences that the world is on the brink of catastrophe and that they need to prepare. Part of that preparedness involves buying thousands of dollars’ worth of freeze-dried food and survival kits – which, of course, Jones happens to sell.

    ‘A little bit of decency and respect’

    On Wednesday, the head of Maryland State Police announced that dive teams had recovered the bodies of two people in the river. At least four other people are unaccounted for and presumed dead, the Coast Guard said.

    Baltimore’s mayor asked for people to have “a little bit of decency and respect” when it comes to online discourse about the fatal bridge collapse.

    “Don’t spread misinformation. Don’t play bridge engineer online or in the media. Remember that these are people’s family members who have lost their lives simply trying to make transit better for the rest of us,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said.

    By then the tragedy had already become a battering ram for political posturing.

    RELATED: Baltimore Key Bridge collapse: What we know about the missing construction workers; 2 recovered

    Some right-wing social media users suggested that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies were linked to the bridge collapse by arguing that more qualified people were passed over for jobs to fulfill diversity and inclusion mandates and that this in some way contributed to or caused the accident.

    There is zero evidence to support this claim – but it makes for a talking point that generates a lot of likes and shares. DEI programs, which promote the inclusion of people from groups that have historically been underrepresented or discriminated against, have become the latest front in America’s culture wars – with Republican states such as Florida and Texas signing into law bills that restrict these initiatives.

    Politics is everything

    What is perhaps most notable about how quickly and widely conspiracy theories about a breaking news story spread is just how normal this all is right now. The creation of a daily alternate reality is a well-oiled machine by now.

    On any given day there is a solid contingent of online influencers, faux intellectuals, and self-professed “truth tellers” who will tell you whatever you are being told on the news is a lie – whether it’s who really won the 2020 election (Biden did) or if Taylor Swift has the ability to rig the Super Bowl to help President Joe Biden (she doesn’t).

    Some of this mis- and disinformation is politically or ideologically motivated, some financial, some a mix of both. X under Musk has incentivized creators to make viral posts by offering them a cut of the company’s advertising revenue. Musk claims X doesn’t pay creators whose posts have been corrected by community notes – but a lot of posts on the platform fall into a gray area.

    There are other ways to cash in too – like selling doomsday survival kits.

    While many Americans might laugh or shrug when they hear some of these conspiracy theories – the daily deluge of false claims shape the world view of millions of other Americans.

    A quarter of all Americans falsely believe the FBI, not Trump supporters, instigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. A third of Republicans believe the Taylor Swift-Super Bowl conspiracy theory.

    Jewish space lasers

    As news unfolded on Tuesday, the conspiracy theories continued.

    Some people falsely claimed Israel was responsible. Others bizarrely, yet darkly, suggested that the Obamas might be responsible because they produced a Netflix movie where a cyberattack causes an oil tanker to run aground. “Draw your own conclusions,” one person with almost 700,000 followers on X posted Tuesday morning.

    David Simon, the creator of the HBO series “The Wire” and a famed Baltimore native, began fact-checking some of the more ludicrous false claims as they circulated on X on Tuesday.

    When one X user suggested the Covid-19 vaccine was to blame for the collision, because the captain of the ship had collapsed after taking the vaccine, Simon hit back with facts.

    The captain of the ship did not collapse, a power outage caused the collision, Simon noted – before he dryly, and sarcastically, suggested the X user he was replying to might believe the power outage was cause by “Jewish space lasers.”

    RELATED: Ship that collapsed Baltimore bridge was carrying hazardous materials: NTSB

    Before becoming a member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene infamously engaged with a conspiracy theory that Jewish space lasers might have been the cause of deadly wildfires in California.

    On Tuesday, the Georgia Republican posted on X asking if the bridge collapse was an “intentional attack or an accident,” adding that there should be a full investigation. Greene has not weighed in on the cause of the bridge collapse.

    Jewish space lasers were not responsible for the wildfires, nor the Baltimore bridge collapse. But for many Americans, even maybe some in the halls of Congress, it might not seem so far-fetched.

    (The-CNN-Wire & 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.)

    CNNWire

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  • Conspiracy Theories Run Wild Amid Mass U.S. Cell Outage

    Conspiracy Theories Run Wild Amid Mass U.S. Cell Outage

    Wireless customers with AT&T, Cricket Wireless, T-Mobile, and Verizon all reported outages across the country this morning. And just like clockwork, some folks online pounced on the disruption as evidence of a global conspiracy.

    Dave Bautista Opens Up About His Relationship With Denis Villeneuve

    Alex Jones, arguably America’s most popular conspiracy theorist, believes the telecom outage is a direct result of Chinese hackers.

    “Is it a cyber attack? AT&T is being very tight-lipped,” Jones insisted in a web broadcast on Thursday in his typical “just asking questions” style.

    In fact, even people who aren’t known conspiracy theorists were bringing up the apocalyptic Netflix movie Leave the World Behind, causing the title to trend on X.

    “Predictive programming from the Netflix movie ‘Leave The World Behind,’” a prominent X account that shares QAnon conspiracy theories wrote on Thursday.

    “No internet. No phones. No going back to normal,” the account continued, echoing the movie’s promotional tagline.

    And while that really is how the movie is promoted on Netflix, there’s no evidence this outage is “predictive programming,” a term used by some conspiracy theorists to explain how speculative fiction sometimes accurately predicts events in the real world. In the real world, sometimes artists simply predict events because they’re because they’re lucky or have a good handle on things likely to happen in the future.

    Leave the World Behind movie stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, and Mahershala Ali, and follows two families as they try to navigate the world after a mysterious attack, possibly by a foreign adversary, destroys modern technology like cellphone service, internet access, and TV broadcasts.

    Believe it or not, the movie was already a popular movie with people who might have a screw loose. Why? It was executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, who have a producing deal with Netflix. The Obamas figure prominently in baseless conspiracy theories that hinge on a worldwide network of pedophiles controlling the world and that Michelle Obama is transgender. Not to mention the birther conspiracy theory, an idea that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. which President Donald Trump helped spread.

    But it wasn’t just conspiracy theorists who were comparing this outage to Leave the World Behind. Apocalyptic movies work by tapping into our greatest fears for the future. In this case, the movie did a good job of making viewers feel like they weren’t sure what was happening. And when it’s difficult to get real information—as it obviously was for the characters in the movie—several conflicting narratives can start to spread, including rumors about who or what was actually causing the communications breakdown.

    We use movies like Leave the World Behind as cultural touchstones—a shared shorthand when something scary or unjust happens. If the movie is popular enough, it makes sense and everyone instantly knows what you’re getting at, like when the Syrian refugee crisis hit Europe in 2015 and people were comparing the horrific photos that were emerging to the 2006 dystopian film Children of Men.

    Other times the meaning of a film requires a lot more interpretation, like when I argued in 2018 that Bird Box, the Netflix movie starring Sandra Bullock, was the first great monster movie where the unseen horror was social media. But whether it’s Bird Box or Leave the World Behind, we clearly live in an era of incredible unease around technology. We’re all staring at our phones and other screens for hours each day and none of this “connection” is making us feel any more connected to other humans.

    It’s that alienation that can drive many people further into conspiracy theories in a vicious cycle that’s enticing for its simplicity. But why would President Obama help make an entire movie about a plan to disrupt communications and then actually carry out that plan? Apparently in the minds of conspiracy theorists, guys like Obama are all villains in a James Bond movie who tell you their entire plot before they carry it out, giving the hero just enough time to save the day.

    Again, there’s no evidence that anything happening with today’s telecom outage is anything but a normal service disruption. But if you start seeing hundreds of self-driving Teslas piling up with no humans inside, then you can start to worry.

    Update, 9:50 p.m. ET: AT&T has released a statement to explain that today’s outage wasn’t a cyberattack.

    Matt Novak

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  • Column: Pedophile panic and coming political violence. What the Paul Pelosi case revealed

    Column: Pedophile panic and coming political violence. What the Paul Pelosi case revealed

    A unicorn costume, a hammer and a belief that pedophiles are using public schools to destroy democracy: The trial of David DePape for attacking Paul Pelosi was strange and disturbing.

    But take away the costume and the hammer, and the reasoning for DePape’s vicious attack is alarmingly mainstream — pedophile panic.

    By that, I mean the outrageous effort not just by hate-mongering conspiracy theorists to frame LGBTQ+ individuals as deviant and dangerous, lumping them in with criminals who sexually abuse children. But also a cynical bid by some politicians, clergy and grifters to do the same.

    Anti-LGBTQ+ attacks are everywhere, both physical and political. Hysteria about pedophiles, driven by conspiracy theories, has trampled truth.

    As DePape explained it on the stand, he is concerned about “groomer schools,” where teachers are “queering the students, pushing transgenderism to confuse children about their identities to make them more vulnerable to abuse and Marxist indoctrination.”

    Sound familiar? It could have been a quote from a Huntington Beach City Council meeting, a Republican presidential rally or a debate on the floor of the Florida Legislature, where the controversial “don’t say gay” bill last year was described by an aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis as an “anti-grooming” law.

    The quote is, in fact, DePape’s summary of what he learned from right-wing podcaster James Lindsay about one of DePape’s top targets, a professor of feminist theory and queer studies whose house seemed, to DePape, too difficult to break into. So he went to Pelosi’s brick mansion instead.

    When a San Francisco jury came back with a guilty verdict against DePape, it was hardly a bombshell. It is fact that DePape smashed a hammer into Pelosi’s skull, a brutal act caught on camera and uncontested even by his own lawyers.

    What was lost with the quickness of the in-an-out, no-surprises trial — and what should be chilling to any supporter of civil rights — was the defense team’s argument about why DePape created his elaborate plot, which was going to involve donning the unicorn costume while interrogating the victim’s wife, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, about government corruption, and, you guessed it, pedophiles.

    It wasn’t conventional politics. It wasn’t even aimed at Nancy Pelosi. The powerful San Francisco Democrat was somewhere down a list that included the mother of DePape’s two sons, Tom Hanks, George Soros, Hunter Biden and performance artist Marina Abramovic.

    DePape was propelled by the hyper-drive conspiracies that have bled out from internet chat rooms onto streets and into school boards — amped-up paranoia about threats not just to the white Christian values that some perceive as intrinsic to our country’s identity, but to the safety of our children.

    “It’s not just that she’s a pedo-activist. It’s that she wants to turn all the schools into pedophile molestation factories,” DePape said of the queer studies professor he was targeting.

    “She wants to destroy children’s sense of identity because it’s her opinion that this will lead them to grow up dysfunctional and unhappy. And if they’re dysfunctional and unhappy, they will be maladjusted to society, hate society, and want to become communist activists,” he said.

    Those kind of beliefs, ugly and untrue, can no longer be considered extreme, or extremism.

    Take, for example, this commentary from earlier this year by Jonathan Butcher, a fellow at the ultraconservative and ultra-influential Heritage Foundation:

    “For parents, rejecting radical gender theory is a matter of protecting their children. The rest of us, though, should reject queer theory’s attempt to gain control of the next generation,” he wrote.

    Or the mugshot meme Donald Trump posted not too long ago insinuating that pedophiles were out to get him.

    Or Trump’s recent sit-down interview with conservative activists Moms for America, in which he lamented that the “indoctrination programs” at public schools are “out of control” and promised quickly to end them if elected.

    Jared Dmello, an expert on extremism and an incoming senior lecturer at University of Adelaide in Australia, told me that mainstream politics is “driving an anti-LGBTQ ideology.”

    Where once conspiracy was relegated to dark corners, it now has a symbiotic relationship with the mainstream, he said, each building off whatever “evidence” or current events play into the narrative with such speed and force that the sheer amount of information makes it seem like it must be true.

    “The whole goal is to introduce so much chaos into the atmosphere that it’s hard to distinguish what is fact from fiction,” he said.

    Mission accomplished.

    A recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll on threats to American democracy found 59% of Republicans think that what children are learning in school is a critical issue facing the United States. A 2022 poll by USC found that while roughly 60% of Democrats support teaching high school students about gender identity, gay and transgender rights or sexual orientation, only about 30% of Republicans feel the same.

    Of course, parents have good reasons to be concerned about public schools, especially in the wake of the pandemic when teachers are burned out, budgets are tight and students are coping with sky-high levels of mental health challenges.

    But Joan Donovan, an expert in disinformation and a professor at Boston University, told me that while violence remains rare, vigilantes such DePape aren’t the lone wolves we like to believe. She said violence, whether by individuals or groups, is going to increase as the 2024 election nears.

    “I wish it were the case that they were fringe, but they do seem to represent a larger sentiment online,” she said. “Of course taking action in the form of assaulting or attempting to murder people is in and of itself horrendous, but if you look at the kind of discourse that emboldens these people, it’s the natural outcome.”

    Support for political violence has increased over the past two years, with nearly a quarter of Americans now agreeing that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” That comes from the recent PRRI poll on threats to American democracy.

    That percentage has increased from 15% in 2021.

    But get ready for it: 41% of Republicans who like Trump agreed violence may be necessary, and 46% of Trump supporters who believe the election was stolen also believe violence may be an answer. That’s nearly half.

    By all accounts, DePape was just a lonesome loser, unremarkable and peaceful, until he started delving into conspiracy theories during the pandemic. Living in a Bay Area garage that didn’t even have a bathroom, he spent his free time — hours every day — playing video games while listening to conspiracy podcasters pushing what we were then calling QAnon.

    I won’t go so far as to say he was a victim, but he was a vessel for a fire hose flow of propaganda, holding it all in until doing nothing seemed unconscionable. He is accountable for his violence, but it is clear he has lost the ability to parse truth from that swamp of what he calls research.

    Somewhere along his journey, DePape began believing that a secret cabal of so-called elites was ruling the world and participating in a cult that sexually abused children.

    That’s how DePape came up with his list of targets — most of those on it are somewhere in QAnon lore — a set of conspiracies that QAnon expert and Michigan State University professor Laura Dilley told me “absolutely are endemic now.”

    At its core, the political turmoil caused by these falsehoods is not much different from the satanic panic that ruled in the 1980s, driven by discomfort with more women joining the workforce and leaving their children in day care. Then, too, conservatives vilified the LGBTQ+ community to fuel fear that children were in danger and American society was on the brink of collapse.

    And Donovan points out that even the KKK focused on children and education in the 1920s, with the same arguments about American values.

    So none of this is new.

    But we are capable of not repeating the past. Hate and conspiracy aren’t normal. They aren’t American values, to be debated as valid political positions.

    David DePape was fighting an enemy conjured by lies. That enemy may not be real, but the danger of those lies is.

    Anita Chabria

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  • Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack believes conspiracies but didn’t try to kidnap House speaker, attorney says

    Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack believes conspiracies but didn’t try to kidnap House speaker, attorney says

    SAN FRANCISCO — 

    Defense attorneys for the man accused of bludgeoning the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer last year told jurors Thursday they acknowledge their client committed a crime and harbored “bizarre” far-right conspiracy theories, but they disputed federal charges that he attempted to kidnap the congresswoman and assaulted Paul Pelosi in connection with her official duties.

    In a lengthy opening argument, federal public defender Jodi Linker said David DePape, 43, broke into the Pelosis’ home during the early morning of Oct. 28, 2022, as part of a broader plan to end corruption, human trafficking, child abuse and other offenses he believed were being committed by the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi and elected officials such as Rep. Adam Schiff and Gov. Gavin Newsom, and public figures such as actor Tom Hanks and billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

    “Members of the jury, many of us do not believe any of that. We think it’s bogus,” Linker said. “You may think it is all lies, harmful lies that are in fact destroying the country. … But the evidence in this trial will show that Mr. DePape believes these things, he believes them with every ounce of his being. He believes them firmly and completely and it is these beliefs, wholly unrelated to Nancy Pelosi’s official duties to Congress, that propelled him to act that night.”

    DePape’s ideas, whether true or not, Linker explained to the jury of three women and 12 men, prompted his plan to “stop the wealthy elite, to protect children and end the lies and reveal the truth.”

    “And in this court, on these two charges, these beliefs matter,” she added, because the government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that DePape acted in response to Nancy Pelosi’s official duties.

    “That’s definitely not why he did it,” Linker said.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Vartain Horn told the federal court jury that DePape spent months gathering information about the Pelosi family on the internet. He traveled from the East Bay to the couple’s San Francisco home with plans to hold Nancy Pelosi “hostage,” “break her kneecaps” and “teach her a lesson,” she said in her opening arguments.

    “When the defendant broke into the speaker’s home, he had a plan,” Horn said, using the large wood-handled hammer, kept in a plastic bag, to reinforce her argument. “It was a violent plan.”

    Not able to find Nancy Pelosi that morning, Horn said, DePape “unleashed his violence on the next closest thing to the speaker.”

    DePape faces up to a combined 50 years in prison for attempted kidnapping of the former speaker and assaulting Paul Pelosi with the intent to interfere with the lawmaker’s official duties or retaliate against her. He also faces state charges including assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and threats to a public official and their family.

    DePape was in court Thursday and had swapped his orange jail jumpsuit for a blue sweater and a collared shirt, his hair tied back in his signature low ponytail. His ex-partner, Gypsy Taub, and their two sons looked on from the gallery, while the Pelosis’ daughter, Christine Pelosi, sat at the rear of the courtroom.

    Much of the trial will focus on an unnamed woman listed as Target 1, who was described in court as an anthropologist and queer studies professor at the University of Michigan. DePape had planned to use Nancy Pelosi to “lure” Target 1, Linker said, whose research on feminism, pornography and gender roles he believed was at the “root of harm to children.”

    “The evidence will show he had a much larger plan and the stop at the Pelosis’ was only the first stop in that plan,” Linker said.

    What “thwarted” his greater plot, she added, was when police arrived at the home. Paul Pelosi had called 911 after DePape broke into the home, and the two were fighting for control of the hammer when officers knocked on the front door.

    Police ordered them to drop the weapon, but DePape forced it from Pelosi and struck the 82-year-old man on the head, according to several officer body-camera videos shown in court.

    “In that moment, he reacted impulsively and yanked the hammer out of Mr. Pelosi’s hand and he hit him,” Linker said, not because he had a greater plan of assault, but “because [Paul Pelosi] was the one standing there in that moment.”

    Prosecutors called as witnesses three officers who had responded to the 911 call, along with Lt. Carla Hurley, who interviewed DePape from his hospital bed while he was being treated for a dislocated shoulder and other injuries. Hurley described portions of the interview, in which DePape wanders into conspiracies about Hillary Clinton, the Watergate scandal and Democrats stealing the election from former President Trump, as “so jarring, so disturbing,” which prompted her to ask about his mental health history.

    Despite public questions over DePape’s mental capacity, his attorneys are not expected to raise that argument during trial.

    At one point in the interview, DePape said his plan was to question Nancy Pelosi. If she admitted to his conspiracies, he’d let her go. If she didn’t, he’d break her kneecaps, and she’d have to wheel herself into Congress, where other lawmakers could see as an example the consequences of being the “most evil” people on the planet.

    “I am not of unwell mind. I knew exactly what I was doing,” he said.

    Certain police body camera footage, along with the 911 call, surveillance video of DePape breaking into the home and the police interview after his arrest, was already widely publicized ahead of trial and replayed for the jury on Thursday.

    Jurors also saw two photographs of Paul Pelosi lying on his foyer’s wooden floor in a pool of his own blood. Video footage caught what prosecutors referred to as Pelosi’s “agonal breathing,” or what one officer described as the body trying to push oxygen to the brain in a last-ditch effort to stay alive.

    In another police body camera video taken shortly after the crime, DePape seems to offer an admission.

    “I’m sick of the insane f— level of lies coming out of Washington, D.C.,” he told officers. “I didn’t really want to hurt him, but you know, this was a suicide mission, and you know, with the s— that’s going on in f—Washington, D.C., I’m not just going to stand here and do nothing.

    “If you guys need evidence, the evidence is there,” he said. “There is no denying what I did. Cops watched me do it.”

    Hannah Wiley

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  • Federal court sentences 2 for marijuana conspiracy in Omaha – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    Federal court sentences 2 for marijuana conspiracy in Omaha – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Below is a roundup of sentences handed down last week in federal court in Omaha, according to updates from acting U.S. Attorney Steven Russell.

    The acting U.S. Attorney’s office in Omaha reminds the public that there is no parole in the federal system.

    Kristen M. Patterson, 40, of Omaha, was sentenced on May 3 by Judge Brian C. Buescher to 6 years in prison for unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon. In April 2021, Omaha Police allegedly saw Patterson’s truck and trailer blocking an entrance to a storage facility. Police ran the plates and allegedly discovered the trailer was stolen. Police then used loudspeakers, patrol lights, a spotlight and sirens to attempt to call Patterson out of the truck for roughly 20 minutes and Patterson allegedly did not comply. Police then made contact and allegedly found a knife and a gun within hands reach. Patterson was a felon at the time and was not allowed to have guns. Patterson testified at trial that she didn’t know the gun was in the truck and a jury found her guilty.

    Marques Eiland, 28, and Aarion Jenkins, 29, both of Omaha, were sentenced on May 3 by Judge Brian C. Buescher for conspiring to distribute marijuana. The Judge sentenced Eiland to 2 years and 7 months in prison. Jenkins had already served 11 months for conduct relating to the conspiracy and was sentenced to an additional 3 years and 4 months. Allegedly between October 2018 and December 2020, the two were part of a marijuana conspiracy in…

    Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

    MMP News Author

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  • Men indicted for shooting at Mississippi delivery driver

    Men indicted for shooting at Mississippi delivery driver

    BROOKHAVEN, Miss. — A father and son have been indicted by a grand jury after allegedly chasing and shooting at a FedEx driver in January after he dropped off a package in a Mississippi city.

    Brandon and Gregory Case, who are both white, were re-arrested Friday and indicted for attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy and shooting into the vehicle of D’Monterrio Gibson, who is Black. The charges were upgraded from conspiracy and aggravated assault.

    Gibson, 24, was not injured. But the chase and gunfire have sparked social media complaints of racism in Brookhaven, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of the state capital, Jackson.

    Gibson and his attorney, Carlos Moore, said they pushed prosecutors to secure an indictment for nearly 10 months.

    “It was an extremely long process to get this far into the case,” Gibson told WLBT-TV. “I feel like most of the time, I was treated like a suspect rather than a victim.”

    Moore compared the incident to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was running empty-handed through a Georgia subdivision in 2020 when three white strangers chased him down and blasted him with a shotgun.

    Moore has called for a federal hate crime probe into the case. A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press in February that the department received a request to look into the case and was reviewing the request to determine any next steps. The department did not provide an update Tuesday.

    Gibson said he was wearing a FedEx uniform and was driving an unmarked van that FedEx had rented when he dropped off a package at a house in Brookhaven on Jan. 24. As he was leaving, he said he noticed a white pickup truck pulling away from another house on the same large lot.

    The pickup driver then tried to cut him off as he pulled out of the driveway, he said. Gibson swerved around him and then encountered a second man who had a gun pointed at the van and was motioning for him to stop. Gibson said the man fired as he drove away, damaging the van and packages inside. He said the white pickup chased him to the interstate highway near Brookhaven before ending the pursuit.

    Attorneys for Brandon and Gregory Case did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Cases were initially arrested in February and released after paying bonds on lesser charges. Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing said bond was set at $500,000 for the upgraded charges, according to the Brookhaven Daily Leader.

    Moore doesn’t expect the case to go to trial until May of 2023 at the earliest.

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  • 4th person surrenders in slaying of rapper Young Dolph

    4th person surrenders in slaying of rapper Young Dolph

    FILE – Young Dolph performs at The Parking Lot Concert in Atlanta on Aug. 23, 2020. A man charged with soliciting the killing of Young Dolph pleaded not guilty Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, one year after the rapper and producer was shot to death while buying cookies at a bakery in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn. (Photo by Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP, File)

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  • Elizabeth Holmes faces judgment day for her Theranos crimes

    Elizabeth Holmes faces judgment day for her Theranos crimes

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday will decide whether disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes should serve a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors and endangering patients while peddling a bogus blood-testing technology.

    Holmes’ sentencing in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where she was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marks a climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu TV series about her meteoric rise and mortifying downfall.

    U.S. District Judge Edward Davila will take center stage as he weighs the federal government’s recommendation to send Holmes, 38, to federal prison for 15 years. That’s slightly less than the maximum sentence of 20 years she could face, but far longer than her legal team’s attempt to limit her incarceration to no more than 18 months, preferably served in home confinement.

    Her lawyers have argued that Holmes deserves more lenient treatment as a well-meaning entrepreneur who is now a devoted mother with another child on the way. Their arguments were supported by more than 130 letters submitted by family, friends and former colleagues praising Holmes.

    A probation report also submitted to Davila recommended a nine=year prison sentence for Holmes.

    Prosecutors also want Holmes to pay $804 million in restitution. The amount covers most of the nearly $1 billion that Holmes raised from a list of sophisticated investors that included software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and the Walton family behind Walmart.

    While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former U.S. Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.”

    Davila’s judgment – and Holmes’ reporting date for a potential stint in prison — could be affected by the former entrepreneur’s second pregnancy in two years. After giving birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year, Holmes became pregnant at some point while free on bail this year.

    Although her lawyers didn’t mention the pregnancy in a 82-page memo submitted to Davila last week, the pregnancy was confirmed in a letter from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, that urged the judge to be merciful.

    In that 12-page letter, which included pictures of Holmes doting on their 1-year-old son, Evans mentioned that Holmes participated in a Golden Gate Bridge swimming event earlier this year while pregnant. He also noted Holmes suffered through a case of COVID in August while pregnant. Evans didn’t disclose Holmes’ due date in his letter.

    Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, predicted that Davila’s sentencing decision won’t be swayed by the pregnancy, but expects the judge to allow her to remain free until after the baby is born.

    “She will be no more of a flight risk after she is sentenced that she was while awaiting sentencing,” Levin said. “We have to temper our sentences with some measure of humanity.”

    The pregnancy makes it more likely Davila will be criticized no matter what sentence he imposes, predicted Amanda Kramer, another former federal prosecutor.

    “There is a pretty healthy debate about what kind of sentence is needed to effect general deterrence to send a message to others who are thinking of crossing that line from sharp salesmanship into material misrepresentation,” Kramer said.

    Federal prosecutor Robert Leach emphatically declared Holmes deserves a severe punishment for engineering a scam that he described as one of the most egregious white-collar crimes ever committed in Silicon Valley. In a scathing 46-page memo, Leach told the judge he has an opportunity to send a message that curbs the hubris and hyperbole unleashed by the tech boom of the past decade.

    Holmes “preyed on hopes of her investors that a young, dynamic entrepreneur had changed healthcare,” Leach wrote. “And through her deceit, she attained spectacular fame, adoration, and billions of dollars of wealth.”

    Even though Holmes was acquitted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to patients who took Theranos blood tests, Leach also asked Davila to factor in the health threats posed by Holmes’ conduct.

    Holmes’ lawyer Kevin Downey painted her as a selfless visionary who spent 14 years of her life trying to revolutionize health care with a technology that was supposed to be able to scan for hundreds of diseases and other aliments with just a few drops of blood.

    Although evidence submitted during her trial showed the tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have steered patients in the wrong direction, her lawyers asserted Holmes never stopped trying to perfect the technology until Theranos collapsed in 2018. They also pointed out that Holmes never sold any of her Theranos shares — a stake valued at $4.5 billion in 2014 when Holmes was being hailed as the next Steve Jobs on the covers of business magazines.

    Defending herself against criminal charges has left Holmes with “substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover,” Downey wrote, suggesting that she is unlikely ever to pay any restitution that Davila might order as part of her sentence.

    “Holmes is not a danger to society,” Downey wrote.

    Downey also asked Davila to consider the alleged sexual and emotional abuse Holmes suffered while she was romantically with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who became a Theranos investor, top executive and eventually an accomplice in her crimes. Balwani, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7 after being convicted in a July trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

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  • Election conspiracy theorists jailed in Texas lawsuit

    Election conspiracy theorists jailed in Texas lawsuit

    HOUSTON — The leaders of a Texas-based group that promotes election conspiracy theories were jailed Monday for not complying with a court order to provide information in a defamation lawsuit over some of their claims.

    Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, who run True the Vote, were ordered detained by U.S. Marshals, according to an order signed by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in Houston. They will be held for at least one day or “until they fully comply with the Court’s Order,” Hoyt wrote.

    Houston-based True the Vote provided research for a debunked documentary that alleged widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Engelbrecht, Phillips and their nonprofit organization are being sued by Michigan-based election software provider Konnech Inc. over True the Vote’s claims of a Chinese-related conspiracy involving U.S. poll workers’ information.

    Alfredo Perez, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in Houston, said Monday that Engelbrecht and Phillips were in the law enforcement agency’s custody.

    True the Vote said in a statement read during a video livestream Monday that its attorneys would appeal Hoyt’s ruling.

    Konnech provides election software used to recruit and train poll workers. It has accused Engelbrecht, Phillips and their group of falsely claiming that Konnech stored the personal information of U.S. election workers in an unsecured server in China.

    The lawsuit also alleges True the Vote’s leaders illegally downloaded from Konnech’s server the personal data of 1.8 million U.S. poll workers.

    Konnech says all of its U.S. customer data is secured and stored on “protected computers within the United States.”

    Hoyt issued a temporary restraining order earlier in October telling Engelbrecht and Phillips to return all data belonging to Konnech and reveal the names of anyone who helped access it.

    In a court hearing last week, Phillips declined to reveal the name of an analyst who reviewed the data.

    True the Vote quoted Engelbrecht in its statement as saying that the group does not believe the person was covered by Hoyt’s disclosure order.

    Konnech’s lawsuit accuses Engelbrecht and Phillips of “racism and xenophobia” by making “baseless claims” that “the Chinese Communist Party is somehow controlling U.S. elections through Konnech because its founder and some of its employees are of Chinese descent.”

    Konnech’s CEO and founder, Eugene Yu, 65, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in China, according to his attorneys. He has lived with his family in Michigan for more than 20 years.

    Engelbrecht and Phillips have pointed out that Los Angeles County prosecutors recently charged Yu with grand theft by embezzlement and conspiracy to commit a crime.

    Prosecutors allege that Konnech violated its contract with Los Angeles County by sending election workers’ information to a China-based subcontractor who helped fix Konnech software.

    Gary S. Lincenberg, one of Yu’s attorneys, has denied the allegations.

    “This is a deeply misguided prosecution that attempts to criminalize what is, at best, a civil breach of contract claim involving poll worker management software,” Lincenberg said last week in a court filing.

    True the Vote’s claims of election fraud have been widely discredited.

    Cellphone data analysis done by True the Vote was used by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza in his film “2000 Mules” to try to show that Democratic operatives were paid to illegally collect and drop off ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

    Independent fact-checkers, including at The Associated Press, found that True the Vote did not prove its claims. Election security experts say it is based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data. Georgia election officials also have said the claims are false.

    ———

    Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

    ———

    Associated Press writer Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report.

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  • Oath Keepers member: Capitol riot was historic, spontaneous

    Oath Keepers member: Capitol riot was historic, spontaneous

    WASHINGTON — A Florida man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers testified Monday that he believed they were participating in a historic “Bastille-type event” reminiscent of the French Revolution.

    Graydon Young, a government witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates, said he saw parallels between the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the French people who “stood up and resisted kings and tyrants” more than two centuries ago.

    “The people were obviously attacking the government and their function,” Young said during the trial’s fifth week of testimony.

    Young, 57, of Englewood, Florida, was the first Oath Keepers member to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge related to the Capitol attack. He was the second group member to testify for federal prosecutors at the trial.

    Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and four others are charged with seditious conspiracy for what authorities have described as a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Republican incumbent Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden, who won the 2020 election.

    Young pleaded guilty in June 2021 to conspiring to obstruct the joint session of Congress for certifying of the Electoral College vote.

    Defense attorney James Lee Bright, one of Rhodes’ attorneys, pressed Young to point to any evidence of a criminal conspiracy or “explicit plan” for Oath Keepers to attack the Capitol.

    “It was implicit to me at the time,” Young said. “I did not explicitly say, ‘Let’s commit a crime,’ but I thought it was implicit.”

    “It was spontaneous,” Bright said.

    “It was,” Young said.

    The others on trial are Thomas Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia; Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Florida; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio; and Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, Florida.

    Jason Dolan was the first Oath Keepers member to testify at the trial. Dolan, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, said group members were prepared to use “any means necessary” on Jan. 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

    After leaving the “Stop the Steal” rally where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, Young said he initially joined Meggs in escorting a rally speaker’s relative. But their “goal” changed, Young said, when Meggs learned that the crowd had breached police barricades at the Capitol.

    “We all knew that there was the potential for a historical event to be taking place at the Capitol,” Young said.

    Young was wearing a helmet and carrying a radio when he joined other Oath Keepers in walking up stairs on the east side of the Capitol in a military-style “stack” formation, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea. After entering the building, Young and others pushed against a line of police officers guarding the hallway connecting the Rotunda to the Senate, the filing says.

    “We stormed and got inside,” Young later posted on Facebook before deleting his account.

    Young said he became scared and ashamed as he realized how much trouble he was in after the riot. He choked up when a prosecutor asked him why he decided to cooperate with authorities.

    “It’s really embarrassing,” he said.

    Young, who served in the U.S. Navy reserves for 11 years, said he was a Trump supporter who “got really ginned up” by a steady diet of political videos on YouTube in 2020. Young’s sister in North Carolina told him about the Oath Keepers. He joined the group less than two months before Jan. 6, thinking “it might be an effective way to get involved.”

    Young posted an encrypted message to other Oath Keepers on Dec. 20, 2020, that said “something more is required” than marches and protests. Asked what he was referring to in that message, Young said, “Something more effective and more forceful than just the protests.”

    Young believed Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election, thought a “corrupt government” was responsible and felt a sense of “desperation and hopelessness” as Jan. 6 approached.

    Jurors also heard testimony Monday by a police officer who crossed paths with Oath Keepers members inside the Capitol during the riot. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn said none of the rioters offered to help him during an encounter captured on video, undercutting a defense claim that Oath Keepers tried to protect the officer from other rioters.

    Justice Department prosecutor Alexandra Hughes asked Dunn what rioters could have done to help him and other officers during the siege on Jan. 6, 2021.

    “Just leave the building,” Dunn said.

    Dunn acknowledged telling the FBI in May 2021 that he allowed rioters in tactical gear to stand near him while he was guarding a stairwell. He said that interaction occurred in the Capitol’s Crypt area and he couldn’t be certain whether the rioters who stood in front of him there were Oath Keepers.

    Jurors saw a video of a separate encounter in which Dunn interacted with Oath Keepers in military-style gear near a staircase in the second-floor Rotunda.

    “I’m not letting you come this way,” Dunn recalled saying in the Rotunda.

    Video also captured Dunn telling rioters that they wanted “an all-out-war” and had injured dozens of officers.

    “You want to kill everybody,” Dunn said.

    Dunn said he hadn’t heard of the Oath Keepers before Jan. 6 and only later learned that he had interacted with members of the group.

    More than 900 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. Rhodes and his four associates are the first Capitol riot defendants to be tried on seditious conspiracy charges.

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  • Jan. 6 trial highlights missed warnings before Capitol siege

    Jan. 6 trial highlights missed warnings before Capitol siege

    WASHINGTON (AP) — In a telephone call days after the 2020 election, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes urged followers to go to Washington and fight to keep President Donald Trump in office.

    A concerned member of the extremist group began recording because, as he would later tell jurors in the current seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and four associates, it sounded as if they were “going to war against the United States government.”

    That Oath Keeper contacted the FBI, but his tip was filed away. He was only interviewed after Rhodes’ followers stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    The defendants are charged with plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power, and their trial is raising more questions about intelligence failures in the days before the riot that appear to have allowed Rhodes’ anti-government group and other extremists to mobilize in plain sight.

    “You don’t have to have been invited to a secret meeting of the Oath Keepers … to know that the Oath Keepers presented a threat,” said Mike German, a former FBI agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program.

    It’s unclear to what extent authorities were tracking Rhodes and his militia group before Jan. 6. But it has since become apparent that authorities had plenty of intelligence warning that some Trump supporters were planning an assault to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

    Despite that, police left unprepared on the front lines were quickly overwhelmed by the mob that engaged in hand-to-hand combat with officers, smashed windows and poured into the Capitol.

    Additional details emerged this month when the House committee investigating the attack disclosed messages showing that the Secret Service was aware of plans for Jan. 6 violence.

    Jurors in the Washington trial, which is expected to last several more weeks, have received a trove of evidence from prosecutors. That includes Rhodes’ secretly recorded call on Nov. 9, 2020, encrypted messages and surveillance footage from the Virginia hotel where the Oath Keepers stashed weapons for a “quick reaction force” that could quickly run guns into the capital if they were needed.

    Much of the evidence, however, has come in the form of statements and writings that Rhodes made publicly in the weeks before Jan. 6. They show how the former U.S. Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate was openly broadcasting his desire to overturn the election and threatening possible violence to attain that goal.

    Days after the election on Nov. 3, 2020, Rhodes announced on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ “Infowars” show that his group was already mobilizing to stop the transfer of power.

    “We have men already stationed outside of D.C. as a nuclear option in case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it,” Rhodes said.

    Jurors also watched video of a speech Rhodes gave in December 2020 in Washington, where thousands of Trump supporters came to rally behind the then-president’s election lies. Rhodes urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives presidents wide discretion to decide when military force is necessary, to call up a militia and “drop the hammer” on the “traitors.”

    “He needs to know from you that you are with him, that if he does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we’re going to have to it ourselves later, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war. Let’s get it on now while he is still commander in chief,” Rhodes told the crowd.

    That day, Rhodes attracted the attention of a U.S. Capitol Police special agent who was doing counter-surveillance monitoring and had recently read a news article about the group. Rhodes was wearing a black cowboy hat, an eyepatch and an expired congressional badge from when he was a staffer for then-U.S. Rep. Ron Paul in the late 1990s. The agent took a photo and sent it to colleagues. Rhodes was also wearing a black cowboy as he roamed the exterior of the Capitol building as Oath Keepers entered on Jan. 6.

    Two weeks before the Capitol riot, Rhodes published an open letter to Trump on the Oath Keepers’ website, suggesting that his followers may need to “take to arms” if Trump doesn’t act over what he viewed as a stolen election.

    Rhodes and his associates are the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial on seditious conspiracy charges. On trial with Rhodes are Thomas Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia; Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Florida; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio; and Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, Florida.

    Abdullah Rasheed, the Oath Keeper member who recorded Rhodes’ call on Nov. 9, 2020, told jurors that that he tried to reach out to the FBI and others to share his concerns about Rhodes’ rhetoric. When asked whether anyone called him back, Rasheed responded: “Yeah, after it all happened.”

    An FBI agent acknowledged on the stand that the bureau first received a tip about the call in November 2020. Pressed by a defense lawyer about why the FBI didn’t investigate at the time, another agent said the FBI receives thousands of tips a day. The tip wasn’t ignored, but was “filed away for possible future reference,” the agent said.

    The Nov. 9 call appears to have been to discuss plans for a “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington that would happen days later, not the Jan. 6 insurrection. But Rhodes throughout the meeting repeatedly tells his followers to prepare for violence, instructing them at one point to make sure Trump knows they are “willing to die for this country.”

    Defense lawyers are not challenging many of the facts in the case, but say prosecutors have twisted the defendants’ intent. The lawyers have acknowledged the group had a “quick reaction force” stationed outside of Washington, but say it was a defensive force to be used only in the event of attacks from left-wing antifa activists or if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act.

    The defense team has hammered on prosecutors’ lack of evidence of any specific plan to attack the Capitol before Jan. 6. Rhodes’ lawyers say their client will testify that all his actions were in anticipation of Trump calling up a militia under the Insurrection Act. Trump never did that, but Rhodes’ lawyers say what prosecutors have alleged is seditious conspiracy was merely lobbying a president to use a U.S. law.

    Prosecutors recently showed jurors jurors a map pointing to where Rhodes made several stops to purchase guns and other gear on his trip from Texas to Washington before the riot. He spent thousands of dollars on weapons, including a AR-rifle, ammunition, sights, mounts and other items, according to records shown to jurors.

    Rhodes and the others are not charged with violating gun laws. Authorities have acknowledged there is no evidence that any of the weapons stashed at the Virginia hotel that housed the “quick reaction force” were brought into the District of Columbia.

    “So the armed rebellion was unarmed?” defense lawyer James Bright asked an agent.

    “The armed rebellion was not over,” the agent responded.

    _____

    Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report.

    ___

    For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

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