Suge Knight’s Former Attorneys Arrested For Attempting To Bribe Witnesses In Murder Case
TMZ is reporting that two of Suge Knight‘s former attorneys, Matthew Fletcher and Thaddeus Culpepper, were arrested for trying to bribe witnesses in his murder case, allegedly.
The two attorneys were arrested on felonious charges: acting as accessories after the fact.
The allegations surround Suge’s murder case over an incident at Tam’s burger joint in Compton. Suge ran over 2 people, killing one of them. He claims he was acting in self-defense.
Fletcher allegedly tried to pay witnesses who were at Tam’s to say they saw the victims and others in possession of a gun — a critical point in Suge’s defense … this according to documents obtained by the L.A. Times.
Culpepper allegedly tried to pay an informant to say he was present during the incident at Tam’s and would testify in a way that was favorable to Suge.
Both attorneys are being held on $1 million bail.
Disney star Adam Hicks arrested on suspicion of a ‘string of armed street robberies’
Hulu series Freakish‘s Adam Hicks of the and Danni Tamburo were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of committing multiple armed robberies.
Hicks “was arrested yesterday afternoon in connection with a string of armed street robberies that occurred yesterday morning,” Sgt. Derek Green of the Burbank Police Department in Los Angeles initially told EW over email. Hicks is due in court tomorrow.
According to a news release sent to media in the early afternoon on Thursday, a 52-year-old walking in Burbank was approached by “a male armed with a handgun,” who demanded the victim’s wallet. The gentleman was able to escape safely, but three additional robberies occurred in the same area within minutes of each other as authorities were investigating the first crime.
Tamburo was suspected to have been driving the vehicle “during the commission of the robberies.”
Police were able to identify the suspect’s vehicle as a dark-colored Kia based on descriptions from victims and witnesses. “Officers found property with the vehicle belonging to one of the robbery victims, and additional stolen property in a nearby area,” the press release reads.
Reps for Hicks did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.
Before debuting as Diesel on Freakish, a series about high school students battling mutants, Hicks appeared in various movies and television shows — including The Boy Next Door, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Disney’s Pair of Kings and Lemonade Mouth, and Disney XD’s Zeke and Luther.
Article via: http://ew.com/tv/2018/01/25/adam-hicks-arrested-robbery/
Mom Of Sorority Girl Who Posted Viral Video ‘F*****g N****s’ Says Her Daughter Deserved To Get Expelled
Jill Barbera is heartbroken to see her estranged daughter “degrading herself.”
Harley Barber’s racist rants went viral, and as a result she was dismissed from her Alpha Phi sorority and expelled from the University of Alabama. Soon after Barber apologized for her offensive remarks, and now her mother Jill Barbera is speaking out.
Barbera said she forced Barber out of the house in December 2016 after months of arguing, and that Barbera did not raise her daughter to have these views. Barber then moved in with her paternal grandmother.
“This is not a reflection of how she was raised. She’s just degrading herself and it breaks my heart,” Barbera said. “I hope someone can look at this and learn. I don’t want anyone to feel what I feel.”
The mother, estranged from her daughter, expressed her support for the University of Alabama’s decision to remove her daughter from the campus, as reported by NJ.com.
“I agree with the punishment,” said Barbera, whose daughter earned national scorn for repeatedly using the n-word in an Instagram video. “I fully support their decision.”
Despite Barbera’s agreement with the punishment, three prominent civil rights activists urged the University of Alabama to rescind their decision in an open letter to the college’s president, according to NJ.com.
Although the former American Civil Liberties Union officials said they were “dismayed and disgusted” by Barber’s videos wherein she repeatedly used the N-word, they argue her expulsion was “unconstitutional, un-strategic and likely to be ineffective.”
“The University of Alabama is an educational institution, and this was a teachable moment that you should not squander,” the three civil rights activists wrote University of Alabama President Stuart R. Bell.
“The impulse to punish Ms. Barber in response to what she said in that video is understandable as an emotional reaction,” said the letter signed by Ira Glasser, former executive director of the ACLU, Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Michael Meyers, the president and executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and former executive committee member of ACLU.
The open letter by the civil rights activists says the school’s decision is impeding on the right of free speech at public institutions.
“The first ban on ‘offensive’ speech is never the last, and the power to ban speech is barred by the First Amendment because it all depends on who is exercising that power, and what he or she finds ‘offensive,'” the letter writes argue.
Barber’s words were found offensive by many; however, the activists suggest this expulsion can then be used in less popular scenarios. For example, if a student were to speak out in favor of abortion rights on a conservative campus and the school expelled them, they would be banning their own version of “offensive” speech.
Kentucky school shooting: 2 students killed and 17 others injured
Another high school has turned into a scene of carnage, this time in western Kentucky.
Article via: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-high-school-shooting/index.html
Pope Francis ‘slander’ comment angers Chile abuse victims
Pope Francis has triggered anger in Chile after accusing victims of a pedophile priest of slander
Francis said there was “no proof” for their claims that abuse by Father Fernando Karadima had been covered up by another man, Bishop Juan Barros.
“There is not one single piece of proof against him (Bishop Barros). It is all slander. Is that clear?” the Pope said.
One Karadima victim said the Pope’s earlier plea for forgiveness over clerical sex abuse was “empty”.
The Pope made his comments on Thursday before celebrating Mass outside the city of Iquique in northern Chile.
“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” the Pope told journalists.
Lifetime of penance
Juan Carlos Cruz was one of the bishop’s accusers who was quick to condemn the Pope’s stance.
“As if I could have taken a selfie or photo while Karadima abused me and others with Juan Barros standing next to him watching everything,” he tweeted.
“These people are absolutely crazy, and @Pontifex (the Pope’s Twitter handle) is talking about reparation to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”
Bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, denies allegations he covered up his mentor’s abuse of boys
Another Barros accuser, James Hamilton, told a news conference the response revealed an “unknown face” of the pontiff.
“What the Pope has done today is offensive and painful, and not only against us, but against everyone seeking to end the abuses,” he said.
Earlier in his Chile trip, Francis had met victims of sexual abuse by priests in the country. He cried with them and said he felt “pain and shame” over the scandal.
The US-based NGO Bishop Accountability says almost 80 members of Catholic clergy have been accused of child sex abuse in Chile since 2000.
- Why Pope’s trip to Chile is a challenge
- Protesters challenge Pope on Church sex abuse
- Chile churches attacked before Pope visit
The Church suffered a body blow in Chile in 2010 when Father Karadima was publicly accused of molesting several teenaged boys in the capital, Santiago, starting in the 1980s.
Mr Cruz claims Bishop Barros was present when Father Karadima – then the bishop’s mentor – kissed and groped him and another boy.
While Bishop Barros has not been accused of abuse, the Pope has been criticised for appointing him bishop of Osorno in 2015. Barros’s ordination ceremony had to be cut short over protests in the cathedral.
Father Karadima was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing teenage boys in 2011 and sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer”.
He never faced criminal prosecution in Chile as too much time had passed, but the judge who heard victims’ testimony in a year-long investigation described them as “truthful and reliable”.
Pope Francis arrived in Peru late on Thursday for a three-day visit which will conclude his two-nation South America trip.
Article via: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42745170
Fake-bomb TV crew held at New Jersey airport
Seven TV crew members have been arrested at a US airport after allegedly trying to film the smuggling of a fake bomb through security
The incident happened on Thursday at Newark Liberty in New Jersey.
Transport officials said a bag carrying an item with “all the makings of an improvised explosive device” was found before it had cleared security.
US media say the crew were part of a reality show being made by a production company for CNBC.
The production company, Endemol Shine North America, issued a statement saying it was investigating the incident and co-operating with the authorities.
“We sincerely apologise for any disruption caused,” the statement said.
Endemol Shine produces the show, Staten Island Hustle, which CNBC has taken up. CNBC has not yet commented.
The crew reportedly wanted to covertly film themselves going through a security checkpoint with the fake device.
Sources reported by the New York Daily News said the crew then wanted to film the reaction of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials and the possible public panic that would ensue.
Images of the device showed it apparently made of vacuum cleaner parts and wires.
A source told the New York Daily News: “The TSA bomb tech just happened to be [at the checkpoint]. He quickly looked it over, said it was nothing and they were taken in.”
The crew face charges of conspiracy to create a public alarm, among others, authorities say.
Lisa Farbstein, public affairs spokesperson at the TSA, said the crew members also faced civil penalties of up to $13,000 (£9,300) for each security violation.
Endemol Shine North America is behind such shows as Big Brother, MasterChef and Fear Factor.
Article via: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42743829
‘I just don’t like Muslim people’: Trump appointee resigns
‘I just don’t like Muslim people’: Trump appointee resigns after racist, sexist and anti-gay remarks
President Trump’s presidency surprised many, and one of the main concerns citizens had, beside the fact that he has had little political experience, is that Trump would bring his seemingly racist views into office- as well as invite others who share a similar outlook.
President Trump’s appointee has resigned from the federal agency that runs AmeriCorps and other service programs following his assertions he made disparaging Blacks, Muslims, gays, women, veterans with PTSD and undocumented immigrants surfaced in the news media.
Carl Higbie totaled six months as the chief of external affairs in the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Higbie’s Thursday afternoon resignation, which was prompted after CNN unearthed the comments he made, comes amid increased scrutiny of the president’s appointees for racist or anti-Muslim statements made in the past.
In November, the Department of Homeland Security’s Jamie Johnson, another Trump appointee, resigned after commentshe made that linked blacks to “laziness” and “promiscuity” came to light. Last week, Pete Hoekstra, the new U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and a former Republican congressman, apologized after uproar over baseless anti-Muslim theories he had spread numerous times in past.
According to the reporting and audio clips published by CNN on Thursday, Higbie had a lengthy track record of making strongly racist and anti-Muslim statements before his appointment.
In 2013, he spoke about giving away free firewood while working in Virginia Beach on “Sound of Freedom,” an Internet talk radio show that he hosted, according to CNN. Higbie said that black women think “breeding is a form of government employment,” that blacks were “lax of morality,” and that culture “is breeding this welfare and the high percentage of people on welfare in the black race.”
On another talk show in 2013, he expressed dislike for the term “African Americans.”
“The whole African American thing gets me whipped up because it’s like 99 percent — and I’m paraphrasing here — of people who write down African American have never been to Africa,” he said.
He also spoke disparagingly of Islam, saying that he didn’t like Muslims “because their ideology sucks,” and that he was fine if his views caused him to be labeled a racist.
“I just don’t like Muslim people. People always rip me a new one for that. ‘Carl, you’re racist, you can’t, you’re sexist.’ I’m like Jesus Christ,” Higbie said on “Sound of Freedom” in 2013.
On another podcast, Warrior Talk Radio, in 2014, according to CNN, he struck a similar chord.
“I was called an Islamophobe, and I was like, ‘no, no, no, no, no, I’m not afraid of them. I don’t like them. Big difference,’ ” he said on the show. “And they were like, ‘Well, you’re racist.’ I was like, fine if that’s the definition of it, then I guess I am.’”
This is not the first round of controversy for Higbie, who worked as the spokesman for pro-Trump super PAC Great America before the 2016 election. During an appearance on Fox News shortly after the election, he cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for some of the president’s potential immigration plans, and the remarks drew wide condemnation.
Nonetheless, he was appointed to the position at the CNCS, which runs AmeriCorps and other volunteering initiatives, and has programs dedicated to rebuilding after natural disasters and supporting veterans and their families, including helping them transition once they return home.
In other audio unearthed by CNN, Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, derided military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder as having “a weak mind” and said he thought a large majority of people with PTSD were being dishonest.
“I’d say 75 percent of people with PTSD don’t actually have it, and they’re either milking something for a little extra money in disability or they’re just, they honestly are just lying,” he said on another talk radio show in 2014.
Samantha Jo Warfield, a CNCS spokeswoman, declined to comment on the circumstances of Higbie’s resignation.
[‘Here is what my #shithole looks like’: African countries and Haiti react to Trump’s remark]
Of undocumented immigrants, Higbie, on another episode of “Sound of Freedom” in 2013, said that Americans with guns should be able to shoot undocumented immigrants who attempted to cross into the United States at the border.
“What’s so wrong with wanting to put up a fence and saying, ‘Hey, everybody with a gun, if you want to go shoot people coming across our border illegally, you can do it fo’ free,’ ” Higbie said. “You cross my border, I will shoot you in the face. I will go down there. I’ll volunteer to go down there and stand on that border for, I don’t know, a week or so at a time, and that’ll be my civil duty.”
He also spoke harshly about Sen. Dianne Feinstein on “Sound of Freedom,” calling the California Democrat a “bitch” and saying he’d love to smack her and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s heads together.
“Nothing gets me going like Ted Cruz, when he went off on that Feinstein bitch about the Second Amendment. And he put her in her place; that was just fantastic. I can’t stand that woman,” Higbie said. “Her and Pelosi. I’d love to just take both their heads and smack them together a couple of times.”
During another appearance on “Sound of Freedom,” he spoke about the legalization of gay marriage in Rhode Island.
“Congratuf’in’lations, you suck, Rhode Island. Why would you do that?” he said. “I mean, you are breaking the morals, the moral fiber of our country. You know, I don’t like gay people. I just don’t.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
She wore the weapon in a photo with a friend — then killed her with it
It was just past midnight when the two friends huddled for a photo in March of 2015.
Cheyenne Rose Antoine’s right arm is outstretched, but disappears at a sharp angle — the telltale sign of a selfie. Brittney Gargol, with auburn hair draped across her shoulder, produces an upturned smirk.
And in the left bottom corner, peeking just into the frame, Antoine captures what would become the main piece of evidence used to put her away for manslaughter.
Antoine, now 21, pleaded guilty to killing Gargol and was sentenced Monday to seven years in a Canadian prison. The decision came nearly three years after the body of Gargol was found dumped on a road outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
An autopsy revealed Gargol was killed by strangulation, and a belt found at the scene matched the one Antoine wore in the photo posted by Gargol just hours before she was killed, investigators concluded.
Two years passed before evidence against Antoine started to mount, eventually leading to her arrest.
A person had approached the Gargol family to tell them about an alcohol-fueled rant that included Antoine’s confession that she had a fight with Gargol and choked her, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix reported.
But police by then were already doubting Antoine’s explanation to them of what occurred that night.
The two women readied for a night on the town and snapped the photo before going out, prosecutor Robin Ritter told The Washington Post.
Antoine later told police that she left Gargol sometime after midnight and met up with her uncle before dawn, to walk along a river.
But after reviewing surveillance videos that would have verified Antoine’s statement, police questioned her uncle again, and he admitted he told a lie to protect his niece.
[Commit a crime? Your Fitbit, key fob or pacemaker could snitch on you.]
Investigators uncovered digital clues, too.
For one thing, prosecutors said, Antoine’s phone pinged WiFi signals at locations and times consistent with an investigator’s reconstructed timeline of the slaying.
Modern society is awash in smartphones, smartwatches and other devices that can track, tag and pinpoint their users at exact moments. That has been a boon to investigators who can confirm details in photos and videos posted to social media, but can also help the wrongly accused show they were somewhere other than a crime scene.
That was apparently understood by Antoine, though her attempt to create an alibi was poorly executed. After the slaying, Antoine wrote on Gargol’s Facebook page: “Where are you? Haven’t heard from you. Hope you made it home safe.”
Ritter said the Facebook comment showed a deliberate attempt by Antoine to dupe investigators about her involvement, with a conveniently time-stamped message of concern. But investigators concluded Antoine knew her friend was not home safe, because she had strangled her to death outside of town.
The photo of Antoine’s belt proved to be a cornerstone of the prosecution’s evidence. Prosecutors said the belt was found at the crime scene, and they believe Antoine killed her friend with it.
The belt’s weave and color, evident in the selfie, were consistent with marks inside her friend’s car and indicated a struggle, said Ritter, a senior Crown prosecutor.
What appears more elusive is the motive, which Ritter said may have started over an argument about a cellphone. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get the answer,” he said.
In a statement read in court by her lawyer, Lisa Watson, Antoine said: “I’ll never forgive myself. It’s wrong and shouldn’t have happened.”
Antoine maintained she did not remember what happened after she and Gargol left a house party the night of the slaying.
Gargol’s family offered emotional statements and sharp rebukes of Antoine.
Gargol’s father, Everett Hillbom, told the court he was shocked by the death of his young daughter, who was 18 at the time. He expected to repair her car the day after she died — “the last time I would have hugged her,” he said, according to the Star Phoenix.
“You were her friend. She trusted you,” Gargol’s stepmother, Kristi Wickenhauser, told the defendant.
Though the prosecution crafted a strategy of damning information about Antoine from publicly available Facebook posts, mining data through personal devices and social media are on the frontier of criminal justice. Laws on recovering private data have not caught up with the proliferation of devices that record them, privacy experts in both the United States and Canada have warned.
“We have recognized for some time now that new technologies have the potential to eviscerate privacy rights,” said Nader Hasan, a Toronto attorney focusing on criminal and constitutional law.
The business research company Gartner estimates that 8.4 billion devices were connected to the Internet worldwide in 2017, a 31 percent increase over the previous year. By 2020, the company estimates there will be roughly three smart devices for every person on the planet.
Andrew Ferguson, a University of the District of Columbia law professor, called this an era of “sensorveillance,” The Post’s Justin Jouvenal reported.
Crime scenes and criminals are covered with hair follicles, droplets of blood and now, in the 21st century, data from smart devices.
[A teen was found buried in a shallow grave. His former classmate is now charged with murder.]
In one instance, Connecticut police used multiple segments of data to bring in Richard Dabate for the alleged 2015 murder of his wife, Connie. His alibi, that a masked intruder tied him and killed his wife after he returned to inspect a home alarm signal, contradicted information harvested from Connie’s Fitbit wristband that recorded her movements after he said she was dead. Police later learned the alarm was triggered by his own key fob, and an email he claimed to send to his boss from the car was tied to an IP address associated with his home, The Post’s Jouvenal reported.
And in another case, an Ohio man in 2016 was charged with arson and insurance fraud after he claimed his house was ablaze as he slept. Police filed a search warrant for data from his pacemaker, and his heart rate and cardiac rhythms appeared to show he was awake at the time.
Social media appears to be a particularly malleable form of covering tracks, though it may not always be convincing: After Antoine’s sentencing, Ritter, the senior prosecutor, said it was “quite remarkable” how investigators used Facebook and other technology to build their case.
Six months after her friend’s death, Antoine was back on Gargol’s Facebook page, posting a comment on the photo that would ultimately help send her to prison.
“i miss you soo much bert! wish heaven had visiting hours so i could come see you,” Antoine wrote. “but i’m so glad you came & visited me in my dream lastnight.”
“i’m blessed to have met you & have you be apart of my life,still can’t believe those last two days were going to be the last 2 days i got to be able to hug you, talk to you & laugh with you , i will cherish && hold all our good memories,” she added.
Stacey Dash Comes For Oprah, Meryl Streep, Seal And Everyone Else
Stacey Dash Says Oprah & Meryl Streep Knew About Harvey Weinstein, Plus She Claps Back At Seal For Saying She Lives In The Sunken Place
After Seal reposted a meme on his Instagram that suggested that Oprah purposely turned a blind eye to Weinstein’s sexually depraved behavior, Stacey Dash echoed his sentiments. However, Seal did not support Dash and went on to say “Don’t try and use me as a pawn against Oprah, or any of your political games,”.
“Stacey Dash, keep my name out of your mouth. Do not retweet [or] re-quote anything I said in order to reinforce your self-hating agenda. You live in the Sunken Place.”
Dash responded to Seal in an open letter, in which she also took the opportunity to cast shade towards Oprah and other celebrities that might have known of Weinstein’s sexual misconducts. Dash went on to deconstruct the #MeToo movement to nothing more than high school politics.
“I won’t walk back what I believe. Oprah the homecoming queen, prom queen and class president knew. Meryl, the high school drama star knew. Most of those women wearing black knew. The class clown, Seth McFarland knew. He joked about it a few years ago on the Oscars, Hollywood’s equivalent of the prom,” Dash writes.
“You know how I can say this? BECAUSE I KNEW. So how “clueless” am I? I knew enough when meeting Harvey Weinstein, to bring a male chaperone and it paid off as he did make a move on me. My chaperone blocked him and said, ‘Not this one.’ You can read all about it here. My chaperone knew.”
The actress continued, “As so many of my critics like to point out, aside from “Clueless” I am nobody. So how did this “nobody” know about Harvey Weinstein, and the popular, powerful mogul, Oprah Winfrey did not? How did the Oscar-laden “Iron Lady” Meryl Streep not know? Hollywood is one big, dark, John Hughes movie. Some of us sit with the regular kids. Some are the outsiders. However, the cool kids sit at the cool kids lunch table and they talk.”
“They talk a lot and they share their elite information among their members at that table. They know the deal. They know how it works and they know they have an image to uphold. From the popular crowd to the freaks and geeks, they all knew the faculty to avoid. Let’s just say right here, I am not judging nor am I condemning. I am simply doing the math and coming up with what appears to be an obvious answer. Occam’s Razor says the simplest answer is usually the correct one. I am writing this with Occam’s Razor.”
Read Dash’s full accusation here.