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Rickards Middle School teacher faces sex charges www.privateofficer.com
Police said, 36-year-old Orville Edwards admitted to them that he carried on a consensual sexual relationship with an eighth grade student. According to the police, the sex acts would take place in his classroom. They arrested Edwards Friday afternoon and charged him with lewd and lascivious molestation.
Police said the relationship began on March 6, when he and the teenager exchanged phone numbers.
Parents were shocked at the the news. “At best, I would say it’s poor judgement,” said a man outside the school. “At worst … I can’t even imagine. It’s beyond belief.”
Students who knew Edwards also reacted with their observations of his behavior in class. “He’s a laid back teacher,” said one unidentified girl. “He loves to have fun with his students.”
“He was fun,” added another female student. “He would say, ‘Rolanda, you look very cute today,’ and I would say, ‘Oh, thank you,’ and he would say, ‘You’re welcome.’”
According to Broward County Schools, this arrest happened only a short time before the end of the work week, and they plan to take action before the work week begins, Monday. Edwards will then probably be reassigned in an administrative position away from students. The school board will be conducting an internal investigation into this matter as well.
TN. cops quit after K-9 dies www.privateofficer.com
Decherd officers Ryan Albaugh and Jeremy Legan stepped down after being placed on unpaid suspension Thursday.
Franklin County’s sheriff said the K-9 officer was found dead in a crate in the back of a police pick-up truck Wednesday afternoon.
The dog was sent for an autopsy, but preliminary results indicate it died of dehydration.
Investigators think the animal may have been left in the crate for at least 24 hours.
Mobile Ala. minister guilty of rape and murder www.privateofficer.com
A Mobile preacher has been found guilty of murdering his wife and raping his step-daughter.
As the verdicts were read aloud in Mobile County Circuit Judge John Lockett’s courtroom, Hopkins stared ahead with no visible emotion.
“We have a number of children who have been harmed by this man, and the chances of them ever fully recovering are very slim,” Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich said outside court.
Still, Rich said, the young women who had the courage to testify against him “are very strong.”
Prosecutors argued that Hopkins murdered 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins in the midst of a fight in December 2004 after she learned he was sexually abusing his stepdaughter.
During the trial, that stepdaughter, now 21, said she helped Hopkins bury her mother’s body before transferring it to a freezer.
It was found by police in 2008 after the stepdaughter, the oldest of eight children, came forward to police.
On Friday, jurors listened to Hopkins testify in his own defense. He said he found his wife dead in their house but was too scared to call 911.
Hopkins said he feared that he would be a suspect in her death and would go to jail, and he didn’t want his children to be separated.
He said he asked his 16-year-old stepdaughter to help dispose of the body because it was “too heavy.”
“I felt bad doing it, but I didn’t want my wife to decompose,” Hopkins said. “I didn’t want her stinking. It was my wife.”
“I knew a freezer would preserve a body, at least until I came forward,” Hopkins said later.
Earlier this week, the stepdaughter testified that Hopkins jumped up and down on her mother’s body to squeeze it into the freezer. But Hopkins denied that.
He said his wife’s body “fit snuggly,” although “I did press the freezer down.”
A few of the Hopkins children testified that their parents were fighting the night their mother died. She kicked Anthony Hopkins out of the house, but he crawled back in through a window, according to testimony.
One girl said she saw him holding a hammer.
On the witness stand, Hopkins also denied sexually abusing his stepdaughter, although he said he did have sex with her in 2008, when she was 19.
He said she approached him in the living room wearing a “chocolate negligee.”
“From that point, I was tempted and I yielded to the temptation,” Hopkins testified. “As a result, she got pregnant.”
Rich questioned Hopkins about finding his wife’s body, asking “if you loved her so much … why didn’t you give her a funeral?”
Hopkins quietly replied, “I wished I would have.”
Rich read parts of letters that Hopkins confirmed he had written to family and friends from the Mobile County Metro Jail.
In one letter, Hopkins wrote “from 1993 to 2008, I knew I wasn’t right due to the struggle that I could at times not resist,” Rich said.
Hopkins wrote that his 2008 arrest began a “purification process,” Rich said.
Authorities apprehended him at a church revival in Jackson as he was giving a sermon.
Arletha Hopkins’ death was ruled a homicide, but investigators couldn’t determine exactly how she died.
Lockett scheduled the sentencing hearing for May 6.
CrimeStoppers employee leaks tip to wanted suspect www.privateofficer.com
His unprecedented actions landed Travis Shantell Williams, 28, in Shelby County Jail by Wednesday night, charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.
Williams is accused of helping warn 54-year-old Cleo Henderson “that he should leave before police get there,” according to a court affidavit. Henderson escaped.
He is wanted in the Jan. 15 murder of Reuben J. Jefferson, 48, outside Luster’s Sundry near Downtown on East Georgia at Danny Thomas Boulevard.
Williams did not contact Henderson directly but allegedly informed a third party who alerted the suspect, according to a police statement.
Not since it began in 1981 has someone answering anonymous calls at CrimeStoppers leaked information to a suspect as Williams is believed to have done, said Buddy Chapman, executive director of CrimeStoppers of Memphis and Shelby County.
“It is a totally unbelievable stretch of coincidences,” Chapman said Thursday.
The story has another strange twist.
Last Aug. 11, Williams was in training to become a Memphis police officer when an instructor accidentally shot him in the left wrist at the police academy.
When the department fired two police instructors in October because of the incident, officials said Williams had been assigned to the department’s Real Time Crime Center.
They said that after fully recovering, he would be eligible to attend another police recruit training session.
Details about Williams’ employment with the city were not immediately available.
Police offered no comment on any possible connection between Williams and Henderson.
Thomas Kern, chairman of the national Crime Stoppers USA, said he has never before heard of a tip taker warning a suspect of the tip.
“That’s a new one on me,” said Kern, a veteran of Indianapolis-based Central Indiana Crime Stoppers.
When the tip came in, Williams did properly issue a tip number to the caller, a step that allows those providing information to remain anonymous.
Chapman, who started the area CrimeStoppers program as Memphis police director from 1976 to 1983, said the “absolutely amazing” coincidences included that Williams was on duty to take the call and apparently knew the suspect.
CrimeStoppers will still reward the anonymous caller, Chapman said.
“I’ll make sure they get paid,” he said. “It’s certainly not their fault.”
Gang member guilty in guard’s death www.privateofficer.com
Jamar Thomas, 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the June 9, 2007, attack on Bower Security Co. guard Wallace Brown near Rosa Parks Road and El Dorado Boulevard.
Thomas, who prosecutors said was from the north side of Palm Springs, was also convicted of robbery and participating in a criminal street gang.
The jury found true special circumstance allegations of committing a murder for the benefit of a gang and murder in the commission of a robbery.
The penalty phase will begin Monday, when the six-woman, six-man jury will hear evidence to determine whether Thomas should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
Also charged in Brown’s death and awaiting trial are alleged Northside Gateway Posse Crip gang members Darius Lee, 21, Jerrett Lewis, 20, and Akil Williams, 19.
“This is just one step in a process to get justice for Wallace Brown,” district attorney’s spokesman Michael Jeandron said after the verdict was announced.
Defense attorney John Hemmer declined comment.
Deputy sues Chicago White Sox, security over arrest www.privateofficer.com
On June 27, Rubin Lopez, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy wearing a Cubs jersey, was attending a Cubs-White Sox game at U.S. Cellular field when a spectator incorrectly pointed him out to security guards as having acted disorderly, according to the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.
When security guards — who were employed by At Your Service LLC, the company named as a partner with the White Sox — responded, Lopez tried to say he was an off-duty deputy and that he could help identify the real trouble-maker, the lawsuit says.
The guards rebuffed him though, and one of the guards, who was named specifically in the lawsuit, shoved and grabbed him before he and another guard dragged Lopez down across rows of seats, the complaint says. The guards’ actions left bruises on Lopez, the lawsuit adds.
The named guard told Lopez he was an off-duty Chicago police officer and that “he would do everything in his power to ruin Mr. Lopez’ career,” the complaint alleges. That guard went on to accuse Lopez of battery with the intent to cause bodily harm and told investigating officers that Lopez had pushed him over a row of chairs.
Lopez was charged criminally, and the Cook County Sheriff’s Department opened an internal investigation into the matter, according to the complaint. Lopez was not allowed to carry his service weapon during the investigation.
Lopez, however, obtained a videotape of the incident and presented it to the state’s attorney’s office, which after reviewing it dropped the charges against him.
Lopez is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the named guard, Chicago White Sox LTD., At Your Service LLC, SDI Security Inc., The Chisox Corporation and other unnamed security guards.
Scott Reifert, a spokesman for the White Sox, said officials have not yet received notification of the lawsuit but said it’s the team’s policy not to comment on active litigation.
The Chicago Tribune is not naming the guard specified in the lawsuit because his name is common, without further identification details, and he was not available to be reached for comment. The Tribune Co. recently sold the Chicago Cubs but retains a small financial interest in the team.
Suspect in armor car heist pleads guilty www.privateofficer.com
KTVU– One of two men who was facing a trial Friday for the robberies of armored cars at banks in Sonoma and Marin counties has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and will testify against his co-defendant, a former Santa Rosa police officer.
Andrew Cooper Esslinger, 27, of Santa Rosa, pleaded guilty in Sonoma County Superior Court Monday to conspiracy, possession of narcotics for sale and possession of a firearm. He faces a six-year prison sentence as part of his plea agreement. A sentencing date will be set May 3.
Esslinger agreed to testify against Robert Starling, 35, of Santa Rosa.
Starling was held over for trial on charges stemming from four robberies: at the Exchange Bank on Stony Point Road in Santa Rosa on Sept. 27, 2007; the Bank of America on Sonoma Avenue in Santa Rosa on April 23, 2008; the Bank of America on Grant Street in Novato on April 15, 2009 and the Bank of America on May 18, 2009 in Sebastopol.
Esslinger was held for trial for the Novato and Sebastopol robberies after a preliminary hearing in February.
At that hearing, Deputy District Attorney Marianna Green said the pattern in the robberies was the same. A man armed with a black semi-automatic handgun, ran toward the guard and yelled at him to get down on the ground outside the bank.
Police estimated that a total of more than $400,000 was stolen in all four robberies, but in the Novato robbery, the suspect grabbed an empty bank bag from a cart outside the bank and fled when he realized it was empty.
Both men also were accused of reporting a false kidnapping in south Novato to a Novato police dispatcher to distract police from the downtown robbery.
Additionally, they were accused of reporting to Rohnert Park police there was a gun on the campus of the Rancho Cotati High School on March 18, 2009, prompting police to lock down the campus for several hours. No armored car robberies occurred that day.
Starling was a Santa Rosa patrol officer between December 2000 and April 2001. He left the force and was rehired in May 2003, then voluntarily left in July 2006, according to Santa Rosa police.
Former KC officer awarded $6.5 million judgement www.privateofficer.com
A former Kansas City Police Department officer was awarded a judgment of $6.5 million Wednesday in his lawsuit against Kansas City and the Police Department.
Danny Holmes’ attorneys argued that he was the victim of race discrimination, whistle blowing and breach of contract. The award was twice as much as Holmes had asked for.
During the case, an attorney for the Board of Police Commissioners said Holmes’ actions in January 2003 led the police command staff to believe he planted evidence and could never again testify in court.
Holmes said the things he was fired for extend into higher ranks in the Police Department. He said he was fired to cover for others in esteemed department roles. He said they told him to do what he did.
The termination, and the wrongful termination suit that is currently under way, revolves around the 2003 murder of Connecticut businessman Guy Coombs, and contact Holmes and his partner had with a drug dealer who would later become the main suspect in the killing.
Holmes said he and his partner started contacting prostitutes and street informants at the request of a homicide detective after Coombs went missing, leading them to an apartment at 37th and Main streets and to a man inside named Edward “Butch” Henderson, a convicted felon who was a part of an ongoing undercover drug investigation.
Holmes said he and his partner visited Henderson’s apartment for a “knock and talk,” and were invited in. Holmes said when he saw a gun, he stashed it in a freezer for safekeeping, to keep him and his partner safe, and then stashed a box of bullets in his duty bag.
But he said he never called a supervisor or crime scene investigators. He left, along with his partner, and never made mention of the discoveries in his report.
Holmes’ partner, Shawn Hamre, told a jury they left because Holmes said he had received a phone call from a homicide detective. Hamre testified, “The gist was ‘Walk away. We were never there.’”
Hamre also said the pair met with their sergeant later that night, at the now defunct Sidney’s Diner, to express their concern, but never got so much as a reprimand until the case was scheduled for trial almost three years later, in the fall of 2005.
“I did what I was told,” Hamre said, when asked if he felt that he had done what he was supposed to do.
The lawyer for the Board of Police Commissioners said phone records showed the detective in question never called Holmes at the time he claimed. Upon cross examination, Hamre said he did not hear Holmes’ telephone conversation or have independent knowledge of who called.
Holmes also claims racial discrimination leading to his termination, saying he was fired for being African-American. His attorney made note of the fact that Holmes’ partner was not fired.
The police board’s attorney questioned Holmes’ partner about whether Holmes ever made mention of race in their two years as partners. His partner, after some thought, responded, “He said he was Puerto Rican. Other than that, no.”
Ohio cop facing child sex crime charges www.privateofficer.com
Prosecutor Aaron Negangard says 52 year old Dennis Lewis, the city’s former assistant police chief, has been accused by another state agency of soliciting sex from an undercover officer posing as teen girl online.
Lewis is behind bars at the Switzerland County Jail, held without bond. Right now, he faces one count of child solicitation, which is a felony. Lewis allegedly tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer, who was posing as a 13 year old girl on a website chat room.
The incident allegedly happened on December 23rd of last year in his home. Lewis is accused of sending the undercover officer a video of his penis.
Police searched his Dillsboro home and took his computer.
Prosecutor Negangard says Lewis may face four additional charges once details of the new allegations are sorted out.
Museum president backs guard union www.privateofficer.com
Most of the 130 security guards voted themselves into a union last year. But so far they have not been recognized by their employer, Allied Barton, which contracts with the Museum. When the Museum’s new director, Timothy Rub, took office last year, he refused to endorse either side.
But in a letter to City Councilman Bill Greenlee, Rub urged Allied Barton to listen to the security guards’ requests.
Union spokesman Fabricio Rodriguez says Rub’s support means a lot.
Rodriguez: “The letter from Director Rub was an enormous development. We’re glad Rub has joined the majority at the museum, councilman Greenlee, and the National Labor Relations Board in calling on Allied Barton to recognize union and improving museum security.”
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Allied Barton must negotiate with the union. The company has appealed.
The guards are fighting for higher pay and better working conditions. They also say they need more emergency training to help safeguard the museum’s visitors and masterpieces.
Security guard arrested after leading police on chase www.privateofficer.com
news 7 — A driver faced a judge Friday after allegedly taunting police and leading them on a wild chase while driving drunk.
Ezeguiel Cardoso, 29, pled guilty to charges of driving under the influence and assault with a dangerous weapon. His family cried in court as the charges were read.
The Chelsea native posted his $5,000 cash bail and then left court with his face covered. He has been ordered not to leave the state, to avoid alcohol and to surrender all his travel documents, including his passport.
Cardoso is accused of driving a company car drunk. Also, he allegedly tried to run down an officer before crashing into a state police cruiser.
“As they attempted to stop him, he continued proceeding through red lights. At a low rate of speed, as the officers tried to overtake him to stop him, they observed that he was drinking from a bottle of alcohol and smiling at them,” said Capt. Keith E. Houghton of the Chelsea Police Department.
The chase continued into Everett, where a state police officer attempted to use his vehicle to block the suspect at the intersection of Routes 16 and 99. Cardoso ended up hitting the cruiser.
“The suspect that we arrested collided with a State Police cruiser as he tried to evade that officer,” said Capt. Houghton.
Later, police finally pulled Cardoso over, and reportedly ordered him to get out of his vehicle. Instead, he allegedly smiled again, held up a bottle and took a drink of cognac.
Authorities said they eventually had to break a car window in order to pull Cardoso out of the vehicle and arrest him.
No one was injured during the incident, but police did use pepper spray when Cardoso resisted arrest. The pepper spray hit Cardoso’s face.
Police also said Cardoso was acting irrationally in his cell and refused a breathalyzer. He was also taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical reason.
Securitas, the company that owns suspect’s vehicle, issued a statement. “We are shocked by the events that unfolded tonight. We are cooperating fully with law enforcement on the matter,” said Rick Avery, Securitas spokesperson.
The security firm also came to court Friday and is now investigating whether Cardoso was on or off the clock at the time of the crash.
“We’re still looking into exactly where he was and what brought him through the city of Chelsea at the time. That’s unclear as well as to whether he had rightful procession of the vehicle, etc.,” said Thomas Fagan, Vice President of Human Resources at Securitas.
Cardoso’s next court date has been scheduled for May 3.
Teacher assistant arrested for sex crimes against students www.privateofficer.com
An emlpoyee at the Algiers Technology Academy was arrested Monday after police said he had a sexual encounter with two students at a Westbank hotel.
Investigators said that on March 28, Leonard Welch Jr., 30, and an unknown man picked up two female students in the Ninth Ward and took them to the hotel where the students were given alcohol, drugs and then performed sex acts. The students were 16 years old and 17 years old and lived in the Ninth Ward.
Welch was booked on charges of carnal knowledge of a juvenile.
Police said they are working to identify the second person who was with Welch.
A spokesperson for the school said Welch was fired.
Off-duty security officer shot to death www.privateofficer.com
They knew him simply as Ross.
He was Ross the grandfather, father and husband. Or Ross, the quick-witted security guard whom store owners and employees at the Clayton Valley Shopping Center came to rely on for comic relief during their workdays.
“I always said he should have been a comedian,” his wife Letris Ross said laughingly Friday. “He was not afraid of making a (fool) of himself.”
So when word began spreading about his death April 1, there was disbelief that someone like him could die in a flurry of gunfire.
Ross, 48, was shot to death in front of his apartment on Clayton Road, about a mile from the shopping center. His 24-year-old stepdaughter’s boyfriend, Claude Lee Mitchell, 25, is suspected in the slaying, police said. Mitchell was arrested outside of Stockton on Friday afternoon after a two-hour search.
Mitchell has a 19-month-old son with Ross’ stepdaughter, who is pregnant with their second child. They lived with Ross and his wife.
Letris Ross said her husband had been pushing Mitchell to get a job and pay his fair share of the rent. He wanted Mitchell to become a provider the way that Ross did when he raised her four children as his own, she said.
The argument continued the afternoon of April 1, when Ross followed Mitchell down an outside stairwell. Unexpectedly, Mitchell pulled out a handgun and fired a shot into Ross’ abdomen, Letris Ross said. She then heard Mitchell cursing loudly as he fired several more shots.
“He unloaded the clip on him,” Letris Ross said, adding that neither she nor her husband knew Mitchell owned a gun. “It was senseless and cruel.”
Mitchell fled, and his car was found abandoned that night in Pittsburg.
The Los Angeles-born Ross worked as security guard his entire adult life, his wife said. He enjoyed the camaraderie and protecting people, but never had ambitions for a police job.
“He said this is what he was put on Earth to do,” she said.
At the shopping center, where he worked for four years, Ross routinely checked in on businesses, store employees said. And while he was there, he’d try to lighten the mood with a wisecrack or gush about his affinity for the Oakland Raiders.
“He’d joke around and talk with us for a while,” said Linda Pineda, a teller at Travis Credit Union in the shopping center. “And he was always talking about the Raiders.”
Anyone with information about the slaying can contact Concord police at 925-671-3333, the department’s anonymous tip line at 925-603-5836, or Bay Area Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.
Casino security aids in drug arrest www.privateofficer.com
RichfieldMn April 10 2010 A 44-year-old Richfield man was arrested for possessing a large amount of heroin, marijuana and cash last week after Mystic Lake Casino security allegedly saw him smoking cocaine from a pipe in his vehicle.
Lorenzo Roberson was charged with third-degree possession of a controlled substance by the Scott County Attorney’s Office on March 29.
Roberson
At about 2:04 a.m. March 28, a Mystic Lake security officer who was reviewing surveillance tape of the casino parking lot, at 2400 Mystic Lake Drive, saw “a large cloud of white-colored smoke in a vehicle” while Roberson was smoking from a pipe, the criminal complaint states.
When Mystic Lake security approached the vehicle, Roberson allegedly appeared very nervous and admitted to smoking cocaine. He gave the security officer permission to search his vehicle, and the officer found several small bags of what appeared to be cocaine, a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the rear console of the vehicle, the complaint states.
Mystic Lake security then placed Roberson in handcuffs when he stated that he arrived at the casino alone and had smoked cocaine, but “someone else placed the drugs in his vehicle.”
Senior citizens charged in robbery scheme www.privateofficer.com
Source: Chicago Tribune The three senior citizens were still wearing dark burglary clothes when they stood before a federal judge Friday charged in their latest alleged caper: watching a suburban bank for months in preparation for a robbery as the branch took a delivery of cash from an armored car.
Federal authorities arrested the trio Thursday night as they neared a Bridgeport residence of a deceased mob leader they had allegedly targeted for a home invasion. Investigators said they earlier had tried to drill into the home. Authorities also suspect them in a 2007 takeover robbery of another bank that netted nearly $120,000.
Two of the suspects — Joseph “Jerry” Scalise, 73, of Clarendon Hills, and Arthur Rachel, 71, of Chicago — were reputed Chicago mob figures released from British prisons in 1993 after serving 13 years for the daylight theft of the egg-shaped, 45-carat Marlborough Diamond and other gems from a London jewelry store. None of the gems, worth an estimated $2.6 million at the time, were recovered. Scalise was a technical adviser on “Public Enemies,” the movie about John Dillinger filmed in Chicago in 2008.
According to the criminal complaint filed Friday, Scalise, Rachel and Robert “Bobby” Pullia, 69, of Plainfield, were suspected in the 2007 holdup and under investigation by the FBI when surveillance agents spotted them casing a bank in La Grange in recent months. They paid special attention to the First National Bank in La Grange on Thursdays when an armored car would make a visit, authorities said.
Testing found Scalise’s DNA on the steering wheel of the getaway car in the 2007 robbery, authorities said.
After planting a listening device in Scalise’s van, the FBI heard he and Pullia chatting about the recent discovery of cash and jewels hidden in the home of mobster Frank Calabrese Sr.’s Oak Brook home, authorities said. And they were heard planning the home invasion at the South Side house of the late Angelo “The Hook” LaPietra.
When the men were arrested outside the home Thursday, agents allegedly found drills, tools, saw blades, a ladder, gloves and a police scanner in the van.
All three remain in custody pending a detention hearing next week. Scalise’s lawyer, Terry Gillespie, said his client told him the charges were “nonsense.”
