26-year-old man admits to posing as 17year old basketball player, groping girl
DALLAS — A 26-year-old man was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to posing as a 17-year-old student so he could play basketball at a Dallas high school and groping a 14-year-old girl.
Under a deal with Dallas County prosecutors, Sidney Gilstrap-Portley received six years’ probation for indecency with a child and record tampering .
Authorities say Gilstrap-Portley claimed to be a Hurricane Harvey evacuee and exploited a Dallas school district policy for disaster victims.
Gilstrap-Portley had played basketball for North Mesquite High School in a Dallas suburb before graduating in 2011. He then played one season at Dallas Christian College.
Dallas school district officials say Gilstrap-Portley posed as 17-year-old Rashun Richardson. He first enrolled at Skyline High School before eventually shifting to Hillcrest High School, where he starred in the Hillcrest Panthers 11-10 season in 2017-18 and was voted a district offensive player of the year by the district’s high school coaches.
He also dated the 14-year-old girl while pretending to be a student.
Gilstrap-Portley’s cover was blown in May 2018 after one of his former North Mesquite coaches recognized him when he played in a tournament the month before.
The explosive revelation made national headlines and rated coverage in such publications as Esquire and Sports Illustrated.
In a television interview after Gilstrap-Portley’s exposure, his father said his son, who had a fiancée and a young child, wanted to reboot his life.
“He made errors. There was no ill-intent,” Sidney Portley told WFAA-TV in Dallas. “We apologize for that happening. It was mis-channeled determination. His passion is basketball. He tried to push ‘rewind’ in his life.”
Photo Credit: AP
Dr. Angela Williams posed as patient to pick up prescription drugs
A Missouri doctor posed as a patient to pick up pain pills she prescribed for other people, federal prosecutors said.
Dr. Angela K. Williams, 34, of Florissant, was indicted Thursday on two felony counts of fraudulently obtaining narcotic opioid prescription drugs, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri announced Tuesday.
Prosecutors said the drug-seeking doc used her own prescription pad to get her hands on strong opioid narcotics, such as hydrocodone and oxycodone, which are generally used to treat pain, but can be highly addictive if abused.
After writing the bogus prescriptions, Williams then posed as patients at pharmacies where she picked up the potent pain pills, prosecutors said.
Williams, who specializes in internal medicine, also used another doctor’s prescription pad and name, as well as the physician’s Drug Enforcement Administration number, to write additional prescriptions to herself, according to prosecutors.
If convicted, Williams faces up to four years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.
Williams’ attorney did not return a request for comment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Williams also faces similar charges in St. Louis County Circuit Court, stemming from allegations in Florissant last year, according to the newspaper.
Photo Credit: Police Handout
Man with over 70 convictions throws coffee on baby days after release from jail
A Seattle man was arrested over the weekend and accused of throwing coffee on a baby — just two days after he’d been released from jail after serving eight months for randomly punching a man.
Q13 Fox reported that the suspect, Francisco Calderon, has been convicted more than 70 times, and 14 of those convictions were on assault charges.
The station, citing witnesses, reported that Calderon was behaving erratically before the alleged attack near Seattle’s Westlake Park. Witnesses said the baby’s father tackled Calderon and held him down until police arrived.
KOMO reported late Tuesday that Calderon was being held on a misdemeanor charge, not on a felony charge of assaulting a child.
“Mr. Calderon is being released without conditions on the felony charge,” King County District Court Judge Anne Harper said. “He has been filed in Seattle Municipal Court on a misdemeanor charge … he remains detained but not on the felony. That is by decision of King County Prosecutor’s Office and Seattle City Attorney.”
Calderon received a yearlong jail sentence for his previous attack after Municipal Court Judge Ed McKenna rejected a plea deal agreed to by the prosecutor and public defender that would have sentenced Calderon to 30 days in jail and a treatment program. After that case, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes and Director of Public Defense Anita Khandwlwal called for McKenna’s resignation, citing “our shared concern that you are disregarding your duty to act with impartiality and integrity.”
“Our concerns are based on your repeated comments regarding the sentencing recommendations made by prosecutors, the role of defense counsel, and problems you perceive in the criminal legal system, as well as your conduct during the sentencing of Francisco Calderon,” the letter said.
McKenna declined to step down, writing in response: “I was elected to this position by my peers and enjoy continued support from the bench. The court, as the judicial branch of City government, is a separate branch and independently elected and should act free of outside influence. An independent, fair and impartial judiciary is imperative to preserving principles of justice and rule of law.”
Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Missouri Teen Alleges She Was Raped in Middle School Bathroom, Says District Blamed Her for Assault
A teenager who reported she was raped at a suburban Kansas City, Missouri, middle school is alleging in a lawsuit that the school district blamed her in the attack.
The Kansas City Star reports that the lawsuit filed this month says an assistant principal at Bernard Campbell Middle School told the girl’s mother that her daughter got “herself raped” and accused her of disobeying the school’s policy against public displays of affection.
The suit says the assault happened December 2017 in a boy’s bathroom, and that the attacker had been suspended after being accused of sexually assaulting another student at school weeks earlier.
Lee’s Summit police say officers investigated, but prosecutors declined to file charges.
An attorney for the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District says he can’t comment on pending litigation.
Photo Credit: google maps
Juul Went Into Ninth-Grade Classroom, Called E-Cigarettes ‘Totally Safe’: Teens Testify to Congress
A Juul representative repeatedly told a ninth-grade classroom that the company’s e-cigarette was “totally safe” before showing underage students the device, according to two teenagers who testified under oath to Congress on Wednesday.
The comments came at the first of two hearings organized by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy to “examine [Juul’s] responsibility for the youth nicotine addiction epidemic.” Company executives, including Juul’s co-founder, will testify on Thursday.
One of the teens who testified on Wednesday, 17-year-old Caleb Mintz, said a Juul representative spoke to his class as part a “mental health [and] addiction seminar” where teachers were asked to leave the room.
The representative mentioned his connection to Juul, Mintz said, and the comments on e-cigarette safety were met with a “sigh of relief” among his classmates who were already vaping.
‘Very disturbing behavior, to say the least’
In a statement, Juul said the presentation was part of a “short-lived Education and Youth Prevention Program which was ended in September 2018 after its purpose — to educate youth on the dangers of nicotine addiction — was clearly misconstrued.”
But experts say that Juul itself contributed to epidemic-levels of vaping among teens, in part by raising nicotine levels and triggering an “arms race” of the addictive chemical.
“I believe the presenter was sending mixed messages by saying Juul was ‘totally safe’ and following up every totally safe statement with ‘but we don’t want you as customers,’ ” said Mintz. “I believe that the presenter was playing on the rebellious side of teens,” he added, “where when teens are told not to do something, they are more likely to do it.”
Mintz’s friend, 16-year-old Phillip Fuhrman, testified that he was addicted to Juul at the time of the incident, which occurred in April 2018. The two boys spoke with the Juul representative after the presentation concluded, they said, and Mintz asked what he should do if he had a friend addicted to nicotine.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee, asked Fuhrman, “When Caleb [Mintz] asked the presenter what he should do if he had a friend that was addicted to nicotine, was Caleb referring to you?”
“He was,” Fuhrman testified. “Since Caleb was not specific on what kind of nicotine he was addicted to, whether it was an e-cigarette or cigarettes, the speaker thought that he was talking about cigarettes, and he said that he should mention Juul to his friend.”
The product was “a safer alternative than smoking cigarettes and it would be better for the kid to use that,” the Juul representative allegedly said, according to Fuhrman. “He didn’t use it but he did take it out and show it to us,” Fuhrman added.
Krishnamoorthi sighed before calling the company’s actions “very disturbing behavior, to say the least.” He summarized the testimony, saying “a person connected to Juul pulled out a Juul device to demonstrate its safety to teenagers and then lied about the product being quote-unquote totally safe.”
The Juul representative also “mentioned that the FDA was about to come out and say that Juul was 99% safer than cigarettes, and he said that that would happen very soon, and that it was in FDA approval while the talk was going on,” according to Fuhrman.
In the year since the incident, Juul has not received FDA approval as a smoking cessation device.
‘Under the guise of education’
Phillip’s mother, Dorian Fuhrman, testified that after her son started to vape, he “changed kind of overnight. He started spending a lot of time in his room in the dark. He became moody. We had a very contentious relationship.”
She worked with Mintz’s mother, Meredith Berkman, to start a group called Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes after the classroom incident.
Berkman testified that “Juul sent a representative to talk to our kids about its product under the guise of education.” She said an outside group had organized the presentation at her son’s school, but “the school had no idea that the outside group had brought a Juul representative into the school.”
She said she believes the outside group “was naive, definitely, but in good faith.” Berkman said she called the group and a staffer answered the phone. Berkman testified that the staffer, when asked about the presentation, said she had been researching anti-Juul education and came across the name of Juul employee listed online as the company’s youth prevention coordinator.
When reached by the staffer, the Juul employee said she had “the perfect person” and sent the Juul representative into the school, according to Berkman.
‘Human guinea pigs for the Juul experiment’
Later in Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, told Berkman that “as a mother, I can sense your frustration. … I just want you to know you have the truth on your side. And just be stronger for that.”
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley later echoed those comments, telling Berkman that “we thank you for your fierceness and your advocacy.”
“If we don’t take action now,” Berkman said in the hearing, “we face an entire generation of kids addicted to nicotine, who are human guinea pigs for the Juul experiment overall.”
Also at the hearing was public health analyst Rae O’Leary, who represented the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She said Juul “targeted American Indians by exploiting tribal sovereignty, which will eventually negatively impact American Indian youth.”
She recounted a visit by Juul representatives earlier this year in which they offered the tribal council a “switching program” and free starter kits as part of an implied harm reduction effort and public health study. The tribe was “unfairly exploited,” O’Leary said.
Republican Rep. Michael Cloud said at the hearing that e-cigarettes may have a role in smoking cessation, but said “we do need to be clear about one thing. No one wants kids to use tobacco, no one wants kids vaping, and no one wants vaping companies to target children with advertisements.”
Pressley said that “many of Juul’s tactics seem to be right out of the Big Tobacco playbook,” pointing out that for decades, tobacco companies targeted black communities, especially with menthol cigarettes.
“It’s extremely disturbing,” she said. “We’ve been here before. We don’t need a bunch of studies. The only studies we need are the millions of casualties that are behind us and that we run the risk of seeing ahead of us.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images
3 Teens Arrested in Caught-on-Video Beating of Screaming Girl With Special Needs in Chicago
Three teenage girls have been charged in Chicago in the beating of a 15-year-old special needs girl that was recorded on cellphone video and shared online.
Police said during a news conference Thursday that two of the girls are charged with aggravated battery and one is charged with mob action. The girls are 13, 14 and 15.
The video shows people beating the girl as she screams. The girl waives her arms as she tries to fend off her attackers, then falls to the ground, crying, as people nearby laugh.
The video was shared online by a person who wrote that she was a friend of the girl.
She was treated at a hospital and released. Police declined to discuss Thursday whether the girl had been sexually assaulted in a separate incident.
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Dog kept under bed for 2 years is ‘most appalling’ neglect case
RICHMOND, Va. – The Richmond SPCA has rehabilitated a dog found living in one of the worst neglect situations the organization has seen in decades.
The 7-year-old poodle nicknamed Lionheart was surrendered back in April.
“The owner told us he had Lionheart under a bed for 2 years and had only kind of just put food under the bed,” Richmond SPCA CEO Robin Robertson Starr told WTVR. “Lionheart had been completely been without any human attention and affection for a considerable amount of time.”
The dog’s fur was severely matted and could barely walk, stand or eat.
“When I first looked at Lionheart in the kennel run when he first arrived, I literally could not tell which was the front or the back,” Starr explained.
Starr considered Lionheart’s past one of the worst neglect cases in her 22 years with the SPCA.
“We immediately took Lionheart into our care, and our dedicated team got to work. Not knowing his body condition and overall health, our veterinary team worked quickly to relieve Lionheart of his painful mats and address his medical conditions that had mounted over years of neglect,” a Richmond SPCA blog post read. “It took several hours for our staff to remove pounds of matted fur that had amassed on his tiny body.”
Starr said it took a team of veterinarians and caregivers about two months for the poodle to be ready for adoption.
Bill Brown and his wife recently adopted the dog, which they renamed Cody.
“He was really skinny when we got him because they had to shave him to clean him up,” Brown explained.
Cody now lives a happy life with the Brown’s in a Brandermill retirement community.
“It’s unbelievable how someone can treat something so lovable, so cute and so smart,” Brown stated. “We were shocked to find out his background to tell the truth.”
Starr said the poodle’s story is a perfect example of a dog’s ability to bounce back despite a neglectful past.
“Dogs are remarkably resilient creatures and have the capacity to keep loving humans,” she explained. “They seem to always be willing to give humans another chance.”
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/25/dog-kept-under-bed-for-2-years-is-most-appalling-neglect-case/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
A petition to move Halloween to the last Saturday of the month is picking up steam
There are lots of reasons to hate holidays: traffic, awkward family reunions, expensive gifts that would wring a tear from anyone’s wallet. But if there’s one celebration absent from all of this holiday drama, it’s Halloween.
It’s too bad that, more times than not, the sugar-laden holiday is set right in the middle of the week, when would-be revelers have to get to bed early.
But there’s a petition aiming to change that. This time, instead of demanding #Justice for A$AP Rocky or storming Area 51, it’s lobbying to bump Halloween from October 31 to the last Saturday of the month.
The petition, launched last year by the nonprofit Halloween & Costume Association, argues that moving the date of Halloween will lead to a “safer, longer, stress-free celebration.”
The association didn’t respond to requests for further comment.
The roots of Halloween are a lot deeper than Party City commercials might have you believe. Halloween, an abbreviation for All Hallows’ Eve, originated as a pagan festival celebrated by the Celts thousands of years ago.
As a part of Samhain, a celebration of summer’s end, people went “souling” — they’d go from door to door asking for “soul cakes” or food and drink in exchange for a song, dance or prayer. Trick-or-treating got its start there. Now, it’s the main way we choose to commemorate October 31. But trick-or-treating can be dangerous.
So how does moving a date make this spooky holiday safer? In theory, it would mean Halloween would kick off during daylight hours and not interfere with work or school schedules.
Maybe that’s what makes the petition appealing to so many. The organization has scraped together 58,980 signatures, and more are coming in by the day.
After its rallying cry, the petition lists safety tips for both parents and partiers. “63% of children don’t carry a flashlight while they are (trick)-or-treating. Grab a clip-on light if they don’t want to carry one! Children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween.”
Why is a petition started a year ago just picking up steam in the middle of July? The fiery glory of the Fourth of July must have worn off, and people are looking to the next holiday up on the calendar.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/25/a-petition-to-move-halloween-is-picking-up-steam/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Woman charged after McDonald’s employees say she fired a gun over cold fries
(Meredith) — A Georgia woman is facing charges after employees of a Savannah-area McDonald’s said she fired a gun inside the restaurant over cold fries Tuesday.
WTOC reports that Lillian Tarver left the Garden City McDonald’s with her order and then came back inside, saying her fries were cold. Employees told WTOC that an argument and physical fight ensued, and Tarver fired a gunshot at the floor. According to WJCL, Tarver also allegedly took money from the cash register.
No one was injured in the incident, but employees tell WTOC they are fearful to go back to work.
Tarver then left the restaurant but was later found and arrested by police. She faces 12 charges, including aggravated assault, battery, armed robbery and reckless conduct. Bond information was not available.
Photo Credit: Chatham County Detention Center, Google Maps
80-year-old Nashville man accused of raping 7-year-old girl while her father went to store
NASHVILLE (WSMV) — Nashville Police have arrested an 80-year-old man accused of raping a 7-year-old girl.
According to arrest records, the victim said her father left her alone with Dionicio Hernandez while he went to the store and Hernandez penetrated her. Hernandez admitted to the crime.
Hernandez is charged with two counts of felony rape of a child and was booked into jail on $300,000 bond.
Photo Credit: Metro Nashville PD