Tag: Arrests
Mother stopped possible school massacre by turning in her own son
A Washington state mom turned her 17-year-old son in to police upon finding plans in his journal to carry out a school shooting on the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.
“It’s devastating. I know I did all I can do and that I made the right choice,” the mother, who only identified herself as Nicole, told CBS News about the decision that led to her son’s Sept. 17 arrest on harassment and bomb threat charges.
The teen, in his journal, said he’d use guns and a variety of explosives to carry out the attack on College Place High School, according to police records obtained by KTEL News.
With the weapons, he’d “blast anyone in sight” and “kill everyone possible,” some of his notebook entries read, the outlet reported.
The teen made a note to “kill self after maximum damage” in the writings.
His mother said he told her that he was just being imaginative. The entries were “just a story,” Nicole said was his response.
But Troy Tomaras, College Place police chief, wasn’t buying it.
“Well, he’s plotting to attack and kill people,” Tomaras told CBS News.
“That’s beyond creative writing. That’s beyond normal.”
Tomaras commended Nicole for speaking up.
“She’s very courageous,” he said. “It’s clearly very emotional for her. She loves her son.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/10/07/mother-stopped-possible-school-massacre-by-turning-in-her-own-son/
Photo Credit: CBS
Woman orders food, tells server ‘this one’s on God’ before fleeing
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A New Mexico woman is facing charges after police say she ordered food from a Sonic and told a server, “This one’s on God,” before fleeing.
The Las Cruces Sun-News reports 30-year-old Delila Hernandez was arrested Monday in a felony robbery case.
Police say Hernandez rode her bicycle to a Sonic in Las Cruces and ordered a meal. When the server asked for payment, she allegedly told him, “This one’s on God.”
Police say the server told her, “That’s not how this works,” but gave her the meal after she came toward him.
Police later found Hernandez at a nearby park.
It was not known if Hernandez had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities say her charges may be reduced.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/07/26/woman-orders-food-tells-server-this-ones-on-god-before-fleeing-cops/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Man gets trapped in tunnel he dug under his ex’s house so he could spy on her
MEXICO CITY — A man in northern Mexico had to be rescued after he accidentally trapped himself in a hole that he dug so he could spy on his former girlfriend in violation of a court order to stay away from her, authorities said Sunday.
The Sonora state attorney general’s office said the 50-year-old man had spent days digging the hole in Puerto Penasco, a town on the Gulf of California, only to become trapped and require assistance to get out.
The man had been ordered to stay away from his former girlfriend due to domestic violence charges and he is now in jail, authorities said.
The newspaper El Universal said the man dug a tunnel under the woman’s house. It said the woman told police that over the course of a week, she had heard scratching noises but assumed the noise was cats. But when the sound grew louder, she investigated and found her former partner of 14 years trapped below, the report said. She said she ended the relationship because her partner was very jealous.
Police said the man appeared intoxicated and severely dehydrated once they got him out of the tunnel.
Gender violence is in Mexico’s spotlight this week after a woman was hit by a car and then stabbed to death by her husband outside the governor’s residence in the western state of Jalisco. That incident was captured on video.
Attorney allegedly used ‘shoe camera’ to look up girl’s dress at Apple store
A 66-year-old licensed Bay Area lawyer was arrested Sunday after he allegedly taped a camera to his shoe and then “moved his shoe so that the camera was under a female juvenile’s dress” at an Apple Store in Walnut Creek, Calif., police said.
Jacques Bloxham, who is a personal injury attorney, was reportedly confronted by the girl’s father and fled the store. Officers said they found various cameras and recording devices in the suspect’s car in addition to the one attached to his shoe.
Bloxham was arrested around 3 p.m. and booked into Contra Costa County Jail on suspicion of using a camera to secretly record the undergarments of another person, along with annoying or molesting a child under 18, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He later posted bail.
Police are investigating whether Bloxham recorded others and urge anyone with information to call the Walnut Creek Police Department.
Bloxham was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1986. He founded the Injury Law Center “in response to the public’s need for a personal injury attorney with honesty, integrity and a new understanding of the needs of injured clients,” according to his Yelp business profile.
Man who raped teen on FaceTime call busted thanks to screenshots
A brutal rapist who attacked a teenager while she chatted to her boyfriend on FaceTime was caught thanks to him taking screengrabs of the attack.
Samuel Fortes, 27, followed the 19-year-old victim through the England city of Leeds before dragging her under an overpass and raping her during a 15-minute attack.
Although horrified by what he was seeing, the victim’s boyfriend took a screenshot of Fortes stamping on the girl – which was later used by police as evidence.
He called the police and his girlfriend was found a short time after at the scene of the attack, battered and bruised and naked from the waist down.
The victim’s heartbroken dad later said: “It is like you have been growing and protecting a flower for 19 years and all of a sudden somebody just comes and stomps on it.”
The student was returning from a night out with friends when Fortes, who had been lurking in Leeds city centre, spotted her at 3:15 a.m.
He walked alongside the teenager and asked her for her number.
She politely refused and tried to walk off, still chatting to her boyfriend on the mobile phone app.
As she was about to cross a footbridge to walk home, Fortes grabbed her from behind, Leeds Crown Court was told.
Prosecutor David Gordon said: “The victim struggled and told Fortes to get off her.
“He was smirking and she asked him why. His reply was to punch her in the face six times.”
He dragged her from the footbridge to underneath an overpass where she was savagely attacked.
Most of her clothes were ripped off. She suffered a fracture to her face, a broken tooth and extensive swelling to her face and body.
PUNCHED HER SIX TIMES IN THE FACE
The victim feared she was going to die but Fortes was disturbed when three passers-by on the footbridge found her handbag, phone and keys.
They went to look for the victim and found Fortes attacking her. Fortes fled and police were called.
One officer said: “I was also shocked by the injuries to her face. They were some of the worst I have seen in my 11 years of service.”
Fortes spent an hour hiding behind a bush before fleeing back to his home city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
But he was caught after a painstaking forensic examination of the scene revealed a single piece of hair which was linked to his DNA.
CCTV also showed him wandering around Leeds city centre before the attack, following his victim, and catching a train afterwards.
He was arrested – with the teen’s blood still on his sneakers.
Fortes admitted rape and wounding with intent at Leeds Crown Court on Monday and on Thursday was jailed for life with a minimum of eight years to be served.
Judge Rodney Jameson QC described the victim’s statement as “the most remarkable I have ever encountered,” adding: “I salute her extraordinary courage.”
The victim, now 20, said in the statement read to the court: “I was and still am sickened by the thought that one human could do that to another. I thought I was going to die. It is a feeling that no words could ever describe.
The court heard Fortes, who came to the UK from Portugal in 2010, has previous convictions for domestic violence against an ex-partner in 2017.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/19/man-who-raped-teen-on-facetime-call-busted-thanks-to-screenshots/
Woman arrested after elderly dad found living with hundreds of rats
CALIFORNIA — A Southern California woman is in custody after deputies discovered her 96-year-old father and multiple pets living in a home stinking of feces and infested with up to 700 rats, authorities said Tuesday.
Catherine Ann Vandermaesen, 65, was arrested on suspicion of felony elder abuse and misdemeanor animal neglect, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. She was in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment.
Vandermaesen didn’t want to allow deputies inside the home during a welfare check last Wednesday in Ojai, a small city in a rural valley northwest of Los Angeles, the statement said.
A sheriff’s task force returned the next day and encountered multiple pets and urine and feces throughout the residence, authorities said.
The home was also filled with garbage, according to the release.
Eight dogs, two rabbits, a cat, a parrot and 55 pet rats were removed. Animal Control estimated the house was infested with another 200 to 700 rats.
Vandermaesen’s elderly father and her 74-year-old sister, whom deputies described as a “possible victim,” were taken by ambulance to a hospital. Their conditions were unknown.
County welfare authorities assumed custody of Vandermaesen’s father, who uses a wheelchair.
Officials also helped the sister get temporary housing services.
Vandermaesen had “willfully caused or permitted the health of her elderly father to suffer” by allowing him to live at the home, officials said.
The city declared the home “unlivable and a danger to the occupants and animals.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/03/20/woman-arrested-after-elderly-dad-found-living-with-hundreds-of-rats/
Bus driver arrested for watching porn in front of kids
A New Jersey school bus driver has been arrested for allegedly watching pornography in front of elementary school-age children.
Franck Lafortune, 64, of Burlington Township, NJ, was charged with obscenity to minors under the age of 18 for the alleged incident, New Jersey State Police said Wednesday.
According to police, staff members from the Indian Mills Elementary School in Shamong were notified on Monday that two children at the school told their parents that they saw Lafortune watching the X-rated video on his cellphone before they got off the bus around 8:30 a.m.
The bus reportedly was parked at the time, cops said.
The parents of the children later reported the alleged incident to state troopers, prompting authorities to investigate.
Lafortune was charged and released pending a court appearance
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/06/bus-driver-arrested-for-watching-porn-in-front-of-kids/
‘Psychic’ busted for allegedly scamming woman out of $12K
She should’ve seen it coming.
A Westchester County “psychic” has just been busted for the third time in fewer than two years — this time for allegedly bilking a woman out of her life savings by convincing the client she’d been cursed in a past life as a mute Egyptian healer.
Accused serial Scarsdale scamster Janet Lee, 44, was arrested Tuesday in Bedford and charged with third-degree grand larceny for allegedly ripping off a 64-year-old local resident for more than $12,000, according to court documents.
The woman had sought out Lee’s services in June after growing “despondent” that she’d never achieved her dream of a career in writing or filmmaking, according to a statement provided to The Post by Bob Nygaard, a private investigator she recruited to help bring the psychic to justice. Nygaard said the statement also was submitted to authorities.
The woman said Lee told her there had been “a dark force” plaguing her since her days as an Egyptian miracle worker on a mountain thousands of years ago — and the bad vibes had been placed on her by a rapist she refused to heal.
She said she ended up giving Lee her sole retirement fund, an IRA worth more than $11,000, and quit her job to help “cleanse’’ herself.
She said she handed over the cash outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, where she says the psychic claimed to have an “office.”
“Janet told me to go into the church, to walk down the left side of the church, to kneel and pray before the shroud of Christ and to leave all the darkness behind,” the woman said through Nygaard. Lee allegedly told her she would put the cash in a lock box at the cathedral for safekeeping until the cleansing work was done.
A few days layer, the woman said she did a Web search on Lee — and discovered she was a convicted felon who’d been sued in Connecticut for an alleged scam that closely mirrored her own experience.
“My world came crashing down, having come to the realization I had been conned,” said the woman.
Lee was first busted in Manhattan in June 2017 on identity-theft and forgery raps for posing as another woman to rent a luxury Soho pad apartment. She later pleaded guilty in exchange for three years’ probation.
She was arrested again this past June and hit with grand-larceny and scheme-to-defraud charges for an allegedly fortune-telling scam in the Westchester town of Mount Pleasant. She pleaded not guilty.
She was also sued in Stamford, Conn., last year by a Greenwich woman named Sheila McKiver, who said Lee conned her out of $32,900 by telling her she’d found a “terrible darkness” around her during a Tarot-card
reading in 2015.
Earlier this month, a judge found in favor of McKiver and ordered Lee to pay her $30,000, court records show.
Nygaard says he has been trying to get authorities to arrest Lee for years. The Westchester DA declined to comment. Lee couldn’t be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Ruth Brown
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/psychic-busted-for-allegedly-scamming-woman-out-of-12k/
Man tries to trade cannabis for a car, ends up in jail
ALBANY, Ore. — Marijuana is legal in Oregon, but you can’t barter it for a car.
Police in Albany, Oregon, said Tuesday a car dealer posted a Mazda SUV for sale on an online marketplace on Friday. A man contacted the dealer and offered to trade cannabis for the car.
Matthew Franks, 38, of Independence, Oregon, showed up at a parking-lot rendezvous site that evening, expecting to meet the car seller.
Instead, police were waiting for him.
Police spokesman Brad Liles says Franks was arrested and put into the Linn County Jail. Liles says police seized 5.4 pounds of marijuana, less than the agreed-upon amount.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Franks had an attorney.
Though marijuana is legal in Oregon, sales are regulated and those in the business must be licensed.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/14/man-tries-to-trade-cannabis-for-a-car-ends-up-in-jail/
Wife claims she fatally stabbed husband after slipping on dog poop
A Florida woman arrested on murder charges Wednesday claimed the fatal stabbing of her husband was an accident because she had slipped on dog feces, authorities said.
But they added that the suspect, identified as Rachel Fidanian, 38, has given “several inconsistent statements” about what happened in the couple’s Lakeland, Polk County, home on June 25, FOX 35 of Orlando reported.
“The suspect made a lot of excuses, but none of them made sense,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement obtained by the Miami Herald. “Our detectives did a thorough investigation. In the end, they determined this was an intentional act of domestic violence.”
In the initial 911 call, Fidanian said she was holding her dog while washing dishes, then ran toward her husband, slipped and stabbed her husband in his shoulder area, according to FOX 35. Then later in the call, she said she was holding the dog while slicing pizza, and accidentally stabbed her husband when she tripped while walking toward him, according to detectives.
When Polk County Fire Rescue officials arrived on the scene, Fidanian said she was slicing pizza, then noticed her dog had defecated and urinated in the living room. When she went to clean the mess, she slipped, still holding the knife, and fell onto her husband, investigators said.
But detectives said they found no traces of feces or urine in the living room, FOX 35 reported.
The husband, Bryant Fidanian, was transported to a local hospital and later died there, authorities said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/12/wife-claims-she-fatally-stabbed-husband-after-slipping-on-dog-poop/