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Buffalo tow truck driver shot-killed www.privateofficer.com
According to police, Homicide Squad detectives were called to investigate an incident involving a tow truck collision, in which the tow truck operator apparently was shot, early Saturday afternoon.
The shooting occurred on Latour St. just north of Walden Ave., around 1:40pm.
The victim had just dropped off a vehicle at Latour Auto, and was still inside the tow truck.
A vehicle – described as silver or grey – pulled up and a black male suspect fired multiple shots at the driver.
The victim was able to pull away southbound, down Latour, striking a parked car, fire hydrant and another vehicle traveling westbound on Walden Avenue, and finally hitting a house at 75 Walden Avenue.
The tow truck driver now identified as Corddaryl Henley, was declared dead at the scene. He was a 25 years old Buffalo resident.
Homicide detectives believe the shooting suspect fled the scene on Latour towards Genesee Street.
Eyewitnesses on the scene told wondered if competition among tow truck drivers to pick up business could have sparked this incident.
Eyewitness News reached out to the owner of the company Henley worked for, however they had no comment.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the anonymous TIPCALL number 847-2255, text a tip at 716.847-2255 or use the department’s website: http://www.bpdny.org to report a tip.
Source: WKBW
Woman dies in Virginia road rage incident www.privateofficer.com
Fairfax County VA May 7 2012 The female motorist who died Friday after she was found on a roadway in the Mount Vernon area had an argument with another driver in traffic and then was run over, Fairfax County police said Saturday.
Police identified the victim as Shelinda Delores Arrington, 21, who lived a few blocks from where the incident occurred. According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Arrington sustained crushing injuries to her skull.
About 11:30 a.m. Friday, police responded to a report of a woman lying in the 7100 block of Harrison Lane. Police said Arrington was unconscious when they arrived. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.
Police said they believe Arrington had gotten out of her car and began a discussion with the other driver. Police said they are investigating whether Arrington and the other driver knew each other before the confrontation or road rage was involved with her death.
Fairfax County police spokesman Don Gotthardt said detectives are looking for a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle with temporary tags. He declined to comment further.
On Friday, police closed off Harrison Lane for several hours while investigating the incident. A light-colored Buick sedan was towed from the scene. Police said they interviewed a third motorist, who drove a light-colored SUV and may have been involved.
Patricia Wells, a resident in the block where Arrington was found but did not witness the alleged altercation, said Saturday that both light-colored vehicles were facing northbound toward South Kings Highway. There was no apparent damage to either vehicle, she said .
Police said those with any information on the incident should contact them at 703-691-2131.
Source:washington post
Baton Rouge Police arrested man making loud terrorizing threats at airport www.privateofficer.com
Baton Rouge LA May 7 2012 Baton Rouge Police arrested a man Saturday morning at Baton Rouge Airport.
Police say Jonathan Bonner of 10905 Kingfisher Ave. was taken into custody by airport police and the TSA after he made loud terrorizing threats.
Two officers were injured after struggling with Bonner. Officers say a baby Bonner was holding was safely rescued before he was taken into custody.
Bonner is now in parish prison facing charges of terrorizing, second degree battery and resisting arrest.
Source:wafb.com
Okaloosa County tourism director commits suicide in wake of embezzlement investigation www.privateofficer.com
Mark Bellinger, 52, had gone missing Thursday and was found late Friday morning in his car, said Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley.
Bellinger had been hired as tourism director in May 2010, just weeks after the BP oil spill began in the Gulf of Mexico.
He acknowledged buying the yacht and resigned from the council Thursday.
Authorities said he left a suicide note at his Destin house; his wife called the sheriff’s office after she found it.
Before coming to Okaloosa County, Bellinger had worked in a similar capacity in Palm Springs, Calif.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s office and a mortgage task force — which includes investigators from the FBI — said Friday that they are looking into whether Bellinger bought his home with money that BP gave the tourism council following the spill.
The $747,000, four-bedroom, three-bathroom home was purchased last August, according to property records. Ashley said state officials are conducting an audit.
Okaloosa County leaders were unaware of the yacht’s purchase until recently, when the vessel’s title paperwork was delivered in the mail. Bellinger then acknowledged that he bought the yacht.
AlliedBarton Security Services files lawsuit against mining company for non-payment www.privateofficer.com
AlliedBarton Security Services filed the suit May 1 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against Frasure Creek Mining. AlliedBarton asserts it entered into a security services agreement to provide services at Frasure’s mining facilities in West Virginia and Kentucky.
The suit alleges Frasure never paid AlliedBarton for these services, even after AlliedBarton sent a written demand.
Frasure Creek Mining has not yet filed a response.
Louisville police make few arrests during Kentucky Derby week-end www.privateofficer.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky May 7 2012 – Metro Police said even with the record number of people at the Kentucky Derby, the parades and all of the activities throughout the city, officers only made 30 arrests.
Police have taken a hard stand on all of the criminal activities over the past few years and this has lead to the smaller number of arrests.
22 people were arrested at Churchill Downs Saturday.
Most of those were alcohol related, according to an LMPD spokeswoman.
In addition to security detail, police made 11 arrests for warrants and DUI over Oaks and Derby Day.
Arundel Mills Mall security officers make grisly discovery www.privateofficer.com
HANOVER, Md.May 7 2012 - Arundel Mills Mall security officers made a grisly discovery Sunday morning when they found a woman slumped over in a car behind an Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) building.
Anne Arundel Community College’s Arundel Mills campus is adjacent to the Arundel Mills shopping mall.
According to police, at around 5:30 Sunday morning mall security called 911 to report a woman slumped inside a vehicle parked in an AACC building lot. When authorities arrived they determined that the victim, described as an African American woman in her early 20s, was dead. She was the only person in the car.
Police have identified the victim but are withholding her name pending notification of next of kin.
Officials are unsure how long the victim had been in the car before she was found. The body was taken to the office of the Medical Examiner for further investigation. At this early stage of the investigation, police say there are no signs of foul play.
Detectives from the Criminal Investigation Division are leading the investigation. They are working with both Arundel Mills Mall and Anne Arundel Community College security personnel to identify leads and potential witnesses.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Anne Arundel County Police Department at 410.222.8610 or Metro Crime Stoppers as indicated below.
Source:www.abc2news.com
Chuchill Downs security find homicide victim www.privateofficer.com
Louisville KY May 7 2012 The morning after the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs made national headlines again after a man’s body was found in a barn on the racetrack’s backside.
Police believe the man, identified as Hispanic, was injured in an altercation just hours before he was discovered in barn No. 8 by a track security officer shortly before 5 a.m., said Alicia Smiley, a Louisville Metro Police spokeswoman.
At a Sunday morning news briefing, Smiley said there was no indication that the man’s death was connected to the Derby.
The man’s name or age hadn’t been released Sunday afternoon. But Marc A. Guilfoil, deputy executive director of the Kentucky Horse
Racing Commission, said the man who died was a groom for trainer Cecil Borel. He lived on the backside and had been licensed by the commission since 2008, Guilfoil said.
Borel could not confirm Guilfoil’s account. “I’ve got one groom who’s missing, but I don’t know exactly where he’s at,” said Borel, brother of three-time Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel.
Guilfoil said the commission’s security director, Chris Clark, aided police Sunday morning by providing a database of workers licensed by the state. The man’s identity was confirmed by his family, Guilfoil said.
According to an account Guilfoil said was relayed by Clark, the man was involved in a fight on the backside around 12:30 a.m. Sunday. At some point after that, a second incident apparently took place, Guilfoil said.
The news had become the top story on espn.com by mid-afternoon Sunday. Fox News’ website declared: “Death at the Derby.”
Churchill Downs spokesman John Asher disputed that headline, again noting police’s claim that the death didn’t appear to be related to the race.
“The timing would be unfortunate on any date on the calendar,” Asher said.
Asher said track officials know little more than the details released by police.
Police declined to describe any wounds or the overall condition of the body. Smiley said the man was not in a horse stall, but she wouldn’t say any more about where he was found.
Rob O’Connor, who trains horses at Churchill, said in a brief telephone interview that the body was found in a barn he shares but declined to comment further because the investigation is ongoing.
Smiley said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
The Churchill backside includes 48 barns and workers’ dormitories, and some employees of individual trainers live in tack rooms in the barns, Asher said.
“It’s a little city, 24 hours a day there,” Asher said.
To work on backside, workers must be licensed by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, Asher said.
Deputy patrols streets where he once slept www.privateofficer.com
In a few days, he would attend Augusta Technical College training to be a police officer. The rest of his time was spent roaming the streets looking for shelter for the night.
“I got to know downtown Augusta real well,” said the Conyers, Ga., native.
Since 2009, Jones has gone from a military stint in Iraq to being homeless on the streets of Augusta to recently getting his badge as a Richmond County Sheriff’s deputy. When thinking about the last year, now that their family is back together again, Jones’ wife, Atiah, acknowledges how rough things were.
“We’ve been through a lot,” she said. “But I never doubted him. And look at him now.”
Jones, 25, was hired by the sheriff’s office in February after graduating from the 18-week Peace Officers Training Academy. He now patrols some of the same streets that he found himself sleeping on less than a year ago.
His journey from homelessness to police officer began after he returned from a one-year deployment in Iraq in June 2010. Jones got the call that his reserve unit was being sent overseas a year earlier while he was in school pursuing a criminal justice degree with the intention to go into law enforcement. During his first leave he married Atiah, mother of his 2-year-old son Bukhari.
After Jones returned to Conyers, he moved his family to Charlotte, N.C., to look for work and continue school. He moved his young family into a house with the little money he had saved from his time in Iraq, even though his mother had surgery while he was gone, which took a lot of it. That move would be the beginning of his long slide.
Once there, Atiah Jones became pregnant with their second son Elias and after three months her doctor put her on permanent bed rest. Money was scarce because Jones had not yet landed a job. Their financial situation improved only slightly when he found an entry-level security job after nine months of looking.
“Those months were tight,” he said. “If I had $6 in my pocket, I would make a meal last four or five days.”
As soon as he started the job, he noticed Atiah and Bukhari kept getting sick. They discovered that their home had mold.
With little money to pay for better housing, they moved in with different family members in Georgia. In April 2011, after four moves and the birth of their second son who spent a month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the family moved to Augusta with the intention of Jones eventually attending Augusta Tech. They began living at the home of his brother, who was serving overseas.
Jones believed his best chance to improve his family’s situation was to get into school, where the Post-9/11 GI Bill would at least give them a book stipend off which to live. He decided to attend the Peace Officers Training Academy at Augusta Tech where he could become a deputy, something he had pursued even before his deployment.
His stay at his brother’s home, however, was short-lived. Two weeks after moving in, Jones’ sister-in-law asked him to pay $900 in rent to live there.
Unable to afford that, Jones was forced to send his family to live with some of his wife’s relatives in Florida while he stayed in Augusta.
“It was hardest on our oldest,” Atiah Jones said, looking at Bukhari. “There were many tear-filled nights. He couldn’t understand why we had to say goodbye to Ryan. He already had to do that when he went to war.”
The first four nights after leaving his brother’s house were spent sleeping on the streets of Augusta. He eventually lined up a bed at Garden City Rescue Mission. The shelter required patrons to leave by 6 a.m. each morning and line up again for a bed that afternoon.
Since he had no transportation, Jones would leave the shelter each morning at 4:30 and walk the 15 miles to make the 7 a.m. roll call at his police training class. His luck began to change after talking with a couple older veterans.
The veterans saw how depressed Jones was about his situation and suggested he seek help at Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center. While there, a counselor tried to help Jones get into VA housing and directed him to Al Steele, the veteran education coordinator for the Augusta Warrior Project, a nonprofit that helps veterans.
“Ryan was stressed,” Steele said. “But even when he was at his worst, he still had a level head. He knew what he wanted to do, so our job was to help him get there.”
Steele helped expedite Jones’ paperwork to get his stipend money from the Post-9/11 GI Bill. He also had a contact with the Alleluia community, which had apartments across the street from the school.
In July, after a month at the shelter, Jones moved into one of the apartments. The timing was perfect given what was going on with his wife and kids in Florida.
Atiah and the two boys had been shuttling between her grandmother’s house – where they had to stay under the radar because the community was not supposed to have anyone under 55 living there – and her cousin’s, where seven people were living in a four-bedroom house. She worked nights and kept Bukhari in school, getting two or three hours of sleep.
After her grandmother received a fine because someone at the complex discovered Atiah and the boys were living there, she called her husband and told him they would have to figure out something else. He told them to come to Augusta, where at least they had a roof in his temporary apartment.
The family has since moved into a two-bedroom home in south Augusta. They are slowly, but surely piecing together their lives.
“All that hard work, it felt like it finally paid off,” Jones said.
He is still riding with a training officer, but is expected to get his own car soon. Just the idea of having a car to patrol a beat, he said, is immensely appealing to him considering his recent past.
“Walking?” he said. “I think I’ve done enough of that.”
Source:The Augusta Chronicle
Anchorage bar faces criminal and civil charges in abduction, beating of customer www.privateofficer.com
At Rumrunner’s Old Towne Bar & Grill, however, Lampkin was a member of the “security staff,” and it was he who carried the handcuffs.
In an unusual criminal case lodged against the bar’s owners and Lampkin, an
The bar strongly, categorically denies the charges.
“We’ve always tried to treat people fairly and make sure that they’re protected. … Make sure that nobody gets hurt,” said A.J. Vangilder, head of security for Rumrunner’s. Vangilder said he wasn’t working at the bar at the time of the attack alleged in the criminal case, but that the notion a bouncer would restrain someone, take them to a room and attack them is “ridiculous.”
Police, meanwhile, are looking into new claims that managers at the popular Fourth Avenue bar have for years ignored complaints of bone-breaking violence committed by their employees. More than 15 people have contacted police recently to share their own stories of being hurt at the bar or seeing others victimized, said Sgt. Mark Rein, who is supervising the investigation for APD.
“I was punched in the face by a bouncer at Rumrunner’s, handcuffed, dragged around the outside of the building and brought into a small room and beaten while another bouncer held the door shut,” Roman Gimeno, a computer programmer for the state, told the Daily News. He said his nose and a rib were broken in the assault.
The attack alleged by Gimeno occurred more than a year before the incident that prompted the current charges against Rumrunner’s. The bouncer who hit him was not Lampkin, Gimeno said.
Among additional claims described by patrons in civil lawsuits and recent Daily News interviews:
• A former Fort Richardson soldier says a Rumrunner’s bouncer snapped his ankle by tackling him in January 2010. The bar claimed to have security footage of the encounter but failed to produce the video when the case went to civil court, according to the man’s attorney.
• An Anchorage waiter says he was choked unconscious by a member of the Rumrunner’s security team and woke to find himself surrounded by bouncers, his left arm broken. He says bar management and employees refused to talk to him about the injury and more than $20,000 in medical bills.
• A former Rumrunner’s bartender says a bouncer raped her at her home one night after work. Police investigated and no criminal charges were filed in the case, though an administrative law judge in February concluded the bar broke labor laws by failing to investigate the accusation and by forcing the woman to continue working alongside the bouncer. In a case now pending before the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights, the administrative law judge recommended Rumrunner’s pay the woman $4,531 in lost wages.
Rumrunner’s owner Basilio Gallo did not respond to a Daily News request to discuss the accusations against the business. Employees referred questions to the bar’s attorneys.
OWNER DENIES LIABILITY
An attorney for AB&M Enterprises, the corporation that owns the bar, has said Rumrunner’s committed no crime and that prosecutors are trying to force a settlement by igniting bad publicity about the business.
“These charges, personal in nature, represent the state’s attempt to enlarge corporate liability in a bizarre and unprecedented manner,” Tom Amodio, an attorney for the bar, said in a written statement April 18.
Police were called to Rumrunner’s more than 600 times in 2010 and 2011, according to APD. That was more than the nearby Avenue, Anchorage Pub and Panhandle bars combined, and about 9 percent more than busy Chilkoot Charlie’s in Spenard.
The high volume of calls may reflect well on the bar, said Brent Cole, an Anchorage lawyer defending Lampkin in the recent assault case. Police calls are a sign that the business wants to avoid taking the law into its own hands, he said.
NO BACKGROUND CHECKS
This is what Kevin Marrese, a waiter at the Hott Stixx restaurant, says he remembers about the night his arm was broken:
A 25-year-old aspiring rapper, Marrese agreed to celebrate a performance one night in mid-November with a late-night stop at Rumrunner’s. His buddies wanted to go, he said; he did not. “(It’s) usually a place I avoid, because of its reputation,” but this time he decided to go along.
One of his friends got in argument in the bar and tempers flashed. Someone was shoved. Just as Marrese turned toward the commotion, a bouncer grabbed him in a chokehold from behind, he said.
Marrese woke up minutes later in a side room, surrounded by about four of his friends and twice as many bouncers. Something was very wrong with his left arm, he said. Bones projected at sickening angles beneath his skin.
“I tried to pick myself up. And I couldn’t do it. I instantly knew my arm was broken,” he said.
Friends would later tell Marrese that two of the bouncers fell on him as he was dragged, unconscious, from the bar.
Vangilder, the head of Rumrunner’s security, said he has never heard that claim. The night Marrese says he was hurt at the bar there was a large fight on the dance floor, Vangilder said.
“People on top of people. That was a huge mess, it was a huge brawl. He was on the bottom of it,” Vangilder said.
Marrese described his encounter and injuries in an email to the Daily News at the time, five months before the recent criminal charges against the bar became public.
“The severe lack of training of their bouncers is not helping the problem at all. The violence at that place is almost on a schedule,” Marrese wrote. “Their ignorant lack of a reaction to the growing violence has literally put my life on hold … and the owners refuse to even acknowledge it happened.”
Unlike states such as California and New York, Alaska does not require bouncers to undergo criminal background checks or complete mandatory training before starting work.
After a 24-year-old died in a struggle with bouncers at Chilkoot Charlie’s in 2004, lawmakers and Anchorage Assembly members talked about mandating some form of bouncer training.
The new rules never materialized, though the Anchorage Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association began offering optional classes for bouncers and bar security in 2005.
As long as the liquor industry group was moving quickly to address the problem, there was no need for the Assembly to pass an ordinance to require training, late downtown Assemblyman Allan Tesche said at the time.
Rumrunner’s owner, Basilio Gallo, is listed as a board member of Anchorage CHARR. The organization’s website says the bouncer training is still available.
An attorney for Rumrunner’s did not respond when asked if bouncers at the bar, including Lampkin, completed the training.
Vangilder, the security head, said current Rumrunner’s bouncers have not completed the training, but may do so this summer. The bar has held two security meetings with a CHARR representative over the past two months, he said.
“We have a big operations manual that has been recently printed out so every bouncer has a copy of it, knows what’s expected, knows how we treat different situations,” Vangilder said.
The bar does not require background checks of bouncers, he said, though that too is being considered. The security manager’s own criminal record includes convictions for driving under the influence in 2005 and 2010.
STATE VIOLATIONS
The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which regulates sales of alcohol, has issued Rumrunner’s at least nine “notices of violations” since 2010, according to the City Clerk’s office. The Public Safety Department dismissed at least one of the accusations: that 19-year-old Bristol Palin was illegally allowed into the bar. Other accusations, including the claim that a Rumrunner’s employee illegally sold alcohol on a bus ferrying customers between the Anchorage bar and a sister bar in Mat-Su, led to criminal charges against employees.
One employee, David Gallo, pleaded guilty to the illegal sale of alcohol on the shuttle, court records show. Gallo admitted he knew he was selling beverages illegally but was doing so at the direction of then-Rumrunner’s manager Mike Shomer, according to the notice of violation. Another employee faces a charge of selling alcohol to an underage person on Feb. 11, according to notice of violation.
Another notice of violation, on Nov. 6, was prompted by confusion over exactly who owns Rumrunner’s. Shomer was described as a part-owner on state Commerce Department records, but not on the business’s liquor license, the ABC Board said. Amodio, the Rumrunner’s attorney, said paperwork claiming Shomer was an owner was filed in error and has since been corrected.
‘TAKEN DOWN HARD’
Basilio Gallo, a stakeholder in multiple Anchorage and Mat-Su bars and restaurants, is now listed as the sole owner in state records. Gallo’s corporation faces a civil lawsuit by 26-year-old Pepsi salesman Johnny Brown, the former Rumrunner’s customer who police say was beaten by a bouncer or bouncers at the bar on Oct. 23, prompting the criminal indictment. Brown is asking for at least $100,000 in damages in the suit.
His alleged encounter with bar security and the subsequent cover-up by Rumrunner’s are at the heart of the current criminal case against the bar.
The charges against Rumrunner’s made public so far offer few details about what police believe happened that night. Brown says he had been drinking with a friend and was drunk, arguing with a woman at the bar, when a bouncer approached him.
Brown said he was preparing to leave when the security guard put him in a chokehold and tossed him outside. Brown punched the bouncer, Murville Lampkin, in the jaw, he said.
The bar’s security team leaped on him and cuffed his hands behind his back, he said. Rather than call 911 and report the assault, bouncers hauled Brown into a downstairs office where Lampkin and another man began to beat him, he said.
Brown suffered skull and facial fractures. “I got a broken orbital bone on my left eye. I got eight stitches. The eye tissue came down into my nasal cavity and they had to take the tissue back out of my nose and put it back behind my eye.”
Brown’s friend, worried about his buddy, called 911, police say.
Former prosecutor Kevin Fitzgerald is the attorney for Rumrunner’s in the criminal case. He said Brown was likely “taken down hard” to the ground after landing a sucker punch to the bouncer. But what Brown didn’t mention is that his party was involved in some kind of physical confrontation with security at Platinum Jaxx, another downtown bar, before coming to Rumrunner’s, Fitzgerald said.
“(Rumrunner’s) security was persuaded not to press charges against him, only to have Brown make claims about him being assaulted,” he said.
Lampkin’s attorney, Brent Cole, said Lampkin no longer works at Rumrunner’s. He declined to say if Lampkin quit or was fired.
Either way, Lampkin is eager to tell people what he says really happened, Cole said.
“Both my client and I are looking forward to telling our side of this case, which clearly has not been reported in either the paper or in the charging document.”
‘NO MORE FORCE THAN NECESSARY’
Roman Gimeno says a bouncer punched him because he taunted the man outside the bar on July 4, 2010. He ended the night in a police car, his dress shirt sopped in his own blood. Bar employees lied to police, saying he was the one who assaulted them, Gimeno said.
Police accused Gimeno of trespassing, assault and destruction of property.
The charges were dropped, court records show, though Gimeno paid Rumrunner’s $395.85 for breaking a glass door while attempting to escape from the bouncers. Through his attorney, he apologized to the bouncer who he now says attacked him.
Marrese, the Hott Stixx waiter, said he’d hoped to file a civil suit against Rumrunner’s to recover the cost of his medical bills, but he couldn’t find a lawyer willing to take the case.
Others customers who claim they were hurt at the bar have sued and lost.
A former Fort Richardson soldier, Bradley Woody, alleged in a 2011 lawsuit that a Rumrunner’s bouncer broke his ankle when he tackled Woody at the bar.
A Rumrunner’s attorney claimed security footage of the incident would prove the bar faultless in the injury, Woody said, but when the case went to trial, Rumrunner’s did not produce the footage.
“Two weeks before the trial they magically didn’t have it,” said his attorney, Steven Smith.
In testimony in early November, security manager Vangilder said Woody was never handcuffed. Bar policy required that if a customer was cuffed, police had to be called, he said.
Vangilder’s remarks came less than two weeks after 26-year-old Johnny Brown was handcuffed after he punched Lampkin in the face outside the bar. Security did not call police..
In an interview by phone Friday, Vangilder said Rumrunner’s bouncers may have intended to call police but had not yet done so when Brown’s friend called 911.
“If I had to guess, I would say they didn’t get to that point yet,” said Vangilder, who had not been working at the bar for several months at the time. He returned to the job in March, he said.
Fitzgerald, Rumrunner’s attorney in the criminal case, said he didn’t know if the bar has a policy requiring bouncers to call police when a patron is handcuffed. Asked if the bar has a written code of conduct for bouncers, Fitzgerald says there is “a general standard,” which is “to use no more force than necessary to achieve the goal.”
source-www.adn.com
Jewish elementary school teacher arrested with child porn www.privateofficer.com
According to the JTA, Evan Zauder, a sixth grade teacher at the Modern Orthodox school Yeshivat Noam in Paramus, New Jersey, was arrested after an FBI raid of his Manhattan department.
The agents reported finding “hundreds of images and videos of boys engaged in sex acts” on his personal computer.
Zauder faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and a maximum fine of $250,000.
The school issued a statememnt saying it had “no reason to believe that any of our students are in any way involved or directly affected.”
Zauder is also a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University. The latter’s spokesman, Mayer Fertig, said the school was “saddened and dismayed” by the charges.
Following the news of Zauder’s arrest, Rabbi Shaul Feldman, who heads the US and Canadian chapter of Bnei Akiva, issued a mass email message to parents informing them about the arrest.
We learned of this arrest in the news and have not been contacted by the authorities,” Feldman said in the email.
“This arrest is not related to his employment at Bnei Akiva and we have no reason to believe any inappropriate behavior occurred while he was employed in any of our programs or camps.”
Three shot at Greensboro NC nightclub www,privateofficer.com
Greensboro, NC May 7 2012– Three people are recovering from gunshot wounds after being shot early Saturday morning at the same nightclub.
Police in Greensboro said they received a call around 2;42am, on a shooting in the 4900 block of W. Market St. When officers arrived to the location of Club Rio, they found three victims.
The three shot are identified as: Shaqwana Davis, Kenya Melton and Antonio Hardy.
Their injuries are considered to be non-life threatening, according to police.
The shooting is still under investigation.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 373-1000.
Corpus Christi high school student helps officer in trouble www.privateofficer.com
The officer tried to calm the man down and get him to safety. That’s when police say the man knocked the officer down and started attacking him. An 18-year-old king high school student saw it happen and jumped out of his truck and helped the officer fight off the man. The suspected attacker has been identified as 23-year-old Randy Luna. He was arrested and charged with public intoxication assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.
The officer and the teen were both taken to the hospital with minor injuries. They are expected to be okay.
Con man posed as doctor, lawyer and rabbi, Broward authorities say www.privateofficer.com
Broward Fla May 7 2012 He’s on probation for practicing law without a license. He’s charged with carrying a foreign diplomat’s passport. He got a badge from a Broward hospital identifying him as a doctor and clergyman. His second wife believed he was a rabbi.
But David Vyner only has one true profession: con artist, according to the Broward sheriff’s detective who spent months piecing together the Armenian immigrant’s life in South Florida.
“One day he becomes a lawyer. One day he becomes a doctor. One day he becomes a rabbi,” said Detective John Calabro. “He has delusions of grandeur.”
Vyner, 36, is back in the Broward County Jail after authorities alleged he committed grand theft in his latest incarnation. He’s accused of taking $1,050 from someone who believed Vyner was connected with the Russian Embassy and could push through the renewal of a Russian passport, according to court records.
The Hollywood resident is being held without bond, and immigration authorities have placed a detainer on him with the possibility of deportation looming. Vyner has been in such a situation before, though, and walked out of lockup. When he was arrested April 30 in the latest case, he already was on probation from Broward Circuit Court, awaiting federal trial in Washington, D.C., in an identity theft case and had a pending immigration case as well.
There also is an active arrest warrant out for him from Newfoundland, Canada, where he is facing 20 criminal tax charges.
“It makes my blood boil just to hear his name,” said Myles Malman, an attorney who represents a couple, Sergey and Tatiana Ponyatovsky, who told authorities they lost more than $250,000 to Vyner. “He’s like a man of 1,000 faces and 1,000 names. He constantly changes his identity to fit the moment.”
Vyner convinced the Ponyatovskys that he was an attorney who could help them with immigration issues, Malman said. The couple, like all of Vyner’s alleged victims, were from South Florida’s burgeoning Russian community, court records show.
“He’s an ethnic predator,” Malman said. “He plays on the Russian community, advertising in Russian in Russian publications. Of the people he preys upon, some don’t speak or read English well and others are distrustful of non-Russian speakers.”
Vyner also somehow managed to get an ID badge from Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood that identified him as an “MD” and “clergy,” court records show. He’s smiling in the ID photo with a stethoscope around his neck.
There are no indications in the court documents how long he had the badge.
In response to the Sun Sentinel’s questions, Memorial Regional Hospital issued a statement.
“To maintain the safety and security of our campus, we will not discuss Mr. Vyner’s former relationship with the hospital,” wrote spokeswoman Kerting Baldwin. “What is important to note is that no staff or patients were affected. Our security department took the necessary actions to handle this case and worked with law enforcement to bring Mr. Vyner to justice. Since the incident, the hospital has instituted additional security measures for all staff and volunteers who serve here, and these measures have further strengthened the screening process.”
Vyner testified at a February 2011 hearing that he got a medical degree in Russia and also has been to rabbinical school. He said he ran a business that did translations and travel reservations.
But his first wife said in a sworn statement that he was never a licensed attorney or doctor anywhere. His second wife said in a deposition that he convinced her he was a rabbi, but that she now believes he was only “pretending to be very religious.”
Vyner has gone by a variety of names through the years, including Bagrat Ambartsoumian, Pekrat Vayner and Bagrat Mochkarovsky, according to more than 500 pages of court documents, sworn statements and court transcripts reviewed by the Sun Sentinel.
Besides the variety of names and occupations, official records indicate he was married to his first wife and second wife at the same time. He obtained a Clark County, Nev., marriage certificate with his second wife in 2004, but the divorce from his first wife wasn’t finalized in Broward County until 2006, according to court documents.
Vyner has said he isn’t a bigamist because he had received an annulment from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, where he wed his first wife, court records show. His second wife now has divorce proceedings pending against him. Both women declined to be interviewed by the Sun Sentinel and asked not to be identified in any articles.
Vyner has testified he fled from Armenia because he had been the victim of a “long, long history of persecution.” He arrived in Newfoundland in 1998 where his attempt to apply for political asylum was denied.
His first wife said in a sworn statement that in September 2001, her husband told her they needed to leave Canada as soon as possible and that they traveled to South Florida. Canadian authorities allege he defrauded that country’s equivalent of the Internal Revenue Service of more than $324,000 from August 2000 to September 2001.
While in Newfoundland, Vyner wrongly claimed he was an attorney and represented Russian refugees in immigration proceedings, his first wife said in an October 2008 sworn statement.
Authorities alleged Vyner continued to claim to be an attorney in South Florida. The Florida Bar investigated him for the unlicensed practice of law in 2005, with him subsequently agreeing not to tell people he was a lawyer.
He did though, with at least six Russian speakers subsequently paying thousands of dollars each to Vyner for immigration help, court records show.
In addition, the Broward Sheriff’s Office began investigating Vyner for forging prescriptions to acquire the powerful painkiller OxyContin.
When Vyner learned in December 2010 that the Broward Sheriff’s Office had obtained an arrest warrant for him for unlicensed practice of law, he fled South Florida with his latest girlfriend, Calabro said. U.S. marshals found him on Dec. 28 in a Washington, D.C., motel.
Vyner had an Albanian diplomatic passport with him, prompting federal authorities to charge him with visa fraud and aggravated identity theft.
He has testified he was in Washington to see a congresswoman to present her with evidence that Broward authorities were framing him.
In January, Vyner returned to South Florida to face criminal charges related to the unlicensed practice of law and prescription fraud. He ended up spending about six months in jail until he cut a deal in Broward Circuit Court to plead no contest to 10 felonies, including four counts of unlicensed practice of law. He agreed to serve five years’ probation.
After his plea, he was sent back to Washington for the identity theft case and still had an immigration hold on him, facing possible deportation. The judge handling Vyner’s federal case concluded he was not a flight risk. The immigration detainer was lifted by an ICE supervisor, according to Broward authorities.
Within two months, Vyner had opened a new business, Consular Services Agency, on Hallandale Beach Boulevard and started advertising in Russian publications, according to court records. He offered to help obtain Russian passports and acquire Russian citizenship for children born in the United States.
Calabro said a man with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship went to Vyner last month wanting to renew his Russian passport. The man handed over his documents and $1,050 to Vyner, only to return home to do an Internet search and find out about Vyner’s criminal history, court records show.
The man demanded the return of his documents and money but couldn’t get them back, Calabro said. It turns out anyone renewing a Russian passport must do it in person at a consulate and that it only costs $30, court records show.
When Vyner appeared at a probation hearing in Broward Circuit Court on April 30, he was arrested on a grand theft charge related to the recent client. The federal identity theft case against him is also pending.
Calabro said that when Vyner was arrested last week, he guaranteed the detective he would be out of jail soon.
Calabro’s response: “I suppose then I’ll have to catch you again.”
Source:tribune.com
Man accepts plea deal for 2007 shooting of security guard in South Whittier www.privateofficer.com
NORWALK CA May 7 2012 - A man who had his murder conviction overturned for the 2007 killing of a security guard outside a bar in Whittier pleaded no contest Friday to voluntary manslaughter, authorities said.
Jose Javier Nunez, 28, of South Gate was ordered back to Norwalk Superior Court on June 13, when he is expected to be sentenced to 31 years in prison for the Feb. 9, 2007, shooting death of 28-year-old Reyes Armando Garcia of Whittier.
Nunez fatally shot Garcia as the security guard was involved in a fight with one of Nunez’s friends outside the Ocean Sports Bar on Telegraph Road in unincorporated South Whittier.
After being convicted of murder and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison in 2008, Nunez’s conviction was overturned in 2010 by a three-judge panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which found fault with the trial. Had a plea agreement not been reached, prosecutors planned to try the murder case again.
Family members, including Garcia’s ex-wife, Sacheen Garcia, and his 14-year-old daughter, Mariah, addressed Nunez in court to explain how the slaying has affected their lives.
Sacheen Garcia also read a statement written by her and Reyes Garcia’s 15-year-old son, Reyes Jr. The couple also has a 10-year-old daughter together, Marissa.
“I told him who he took away from my children; who he was,” Sacheen Garcia said.
“Reyes was their father. He was their everything,” she said in her courthouse statement. “He had a smile of gold as my son does. He was kind, he was polite and respectful. He had so many friends. Everywhere he went, someone knew and loved him. He was the type of guy who would give you the shirt of his back if you needed it.”
Sacheen Garcia said the family had mixed feelings about the plea agreement. While she said she believed a murder conviction was justified, she was pleased with the lengthy prison sentence and glad to spare the family the stress of a second trial.
“To have to go through a second trial would have just kind of opened the wound again,” Sacheen Garcia said.
Nunez’s current defense attorney, Simon Aval, said he had been working with Deputy District Attorney Bobby Chen, who is now prosecuting the case, to negotiate a plea agreement.
“This is one of those sad situations where we just wish we could go back in time and avoid the incident happening,” Simon said.
Chen said he believed justice had been served Friday.
“Given the complexities of the case, I think it was the best result that could have occurred,” the prosecutor said.
The legal process the past five years has been very difficult on the family, especially the children, Sacheen Garcia said.
“It’s kind of hard to explain to kids how the justice system works,” she said.
Prior to the fatal shooting, Nunez and four friends were turned away from the Ocean Sports Bar for not meeting the dress code, investigators said.
The group then began drinking in a nearby parking lot.
Reyes Garcia and the other guards who worked at the bar told them to leave.
Nunez’s friend, Jesus Nava, threw a punch at Reyes Garcia, starting a fight, officials said. The security guard got the upper hand in the fight, prompting Nunez to pull a handgun and fire four times, striking Reyes Garcia with at least three of the rounds.
Nunez’s conviction was overturned in 2010 after the panel of judges reviewing his case heard arguments from Nunez’s then-defense attorney, Vivien McGuire, that the verdict was not supported by evidence and that the court erred in not giving the jury instructions on self-defense.
But now, Sacheen Garcia said her focus is now on forgiveness.
“I could stand up here and blame you, Jose, for every painful second, every painful minute, every painful hour of every painful day, but I won’t,” she told Nunez in court. “I choose forgiveness this day for you, Jose, because my lord and savior Jesus Christ hung from a cross and looked down at the bloodthirsty evilness of this world and said, ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.’ I will raise my children in God’s love and teach them that forgiveness is of God and forgiveness will set them free from all the evil of this world.”
Source:www.whittierdailynews.com
