If you said “Rogaine Theft” you nailed it. According to police in Ohio, the bald suspect is being pursued in a series of Rogaine thefts from a Walgreens and other stores in Mt. Healthy, Ohio (outside of Cincinnati). If the Rogaine works, they may want to post a before and after picture to help with identification.
Continue reading “Quick: What Crime Is This Man Suspected Of Committing?”
The Malaysian High Court has issued a ruling that confirms the virtual eradication of free speech rights in that country, one of our closest allies in Asia. The Court upheld an absurd edict from Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi banning T-shirts with the word “clean” in Malay as a national security threat. That’s right. A t-shirt calling for clean government has been declared a threat to national security and High Court Judge Muhammad Yazid Mustafa has declared that there is nothing preventing the government from barring such speech. The t-shirts were a response to reports that nearly $700 million had been deposited in the personal bank account of Prime Minister Najib Razak (left).
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan sent shockwaves through Washington yesterday by ruling that State Department officials and top aides to Hillary Clinton will be subject to discovery on whether they intentionally violated federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The case opens up another front for Clinton who is facing rising criticism over her decision to exclusively use her own private server for communications as Secretary of State — a decision that gave her control over her email system but exposed classified information to interception. The State Department supplied a secure system for her use but Clinton opted not to use that system. Over 1,700 emails on Clinton’s private email system have been classified (22 at the highest level of “top secret”). While Clinton insists that the information was not marked classified at the time, that is not the test under federal law. Yet, this case concerns the use of the private server to circumvent open record laws. The court also indicated that it may order subpoenas for Clinton officials in light to the failure to fully disclose information. Sullivan, who I have appeared before regularly over the last two decades, is a widely respected judge and a Clinton appointee.
Federal and state courts have handed down a virtually uniform line of rulings protecting the right of citizens to film police in public. That is until the February 19th decision of U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney. Kearney was only put on the federal courts in 2014 by President Obama but has written his first major ruling in curtailing the rights of citizens under the First Amendment. Kearney used that there is no First Amendment right to film police unless they can show that they are challenging or criticizing the police conduct.
After excerpts from Ahmed Naji’s novel Istikhdam al-Hayat, or Using Life, were published in a literary newspaper, a reader brought charges against the author and said that reading sexually explicit passages caused him distress and heart palpitations. An Egyptian court has now sentenced the author to two years in jail for public indecency. Notably, Naji was first acquitted by a court in Egypt on the basis of free speech, however the prosecution appealed. He was retried and convicted.
A sex offender was sentenced this month in one of the more frightening criminal plans. Patrick James Fredericksen, 31, pleaded no contest to charges that he stole a school bus in Emery County, Utah and tried to pick up children.
Continue reading “Convicted Sex Offender In Utah Steals Bus And Tries To Pick Up School Children”
It is bad enough to represent a guy in a bankruptcy case named “50 Cent.” It is even more difficult when your client says that he is broke and then posts an image of himself with piles of money spelling out the word “broke.” Just to make sure that the court did not miss the disconnect, Curtis James Jackson III (aka 50 Cent) also posted himself on a bed covered with piles of money. It worked. Judge Ann Nevin and his creditors took notice and now 50 Cent has been called to court. Jackson seems to be competing with the bankrupt Kanye West for the world’s greatest certifiable numbskull. The pictures however raise a question of the significance of such pictures used to maintain the “bad boy” image of such personalities.
We have yet another TSA agent arrested for theft this month. Daniel Ortiz, Jr., 39, was caught removing a $1,000 watch from a passenger’s bag during a security screening and putting it in his pocket at the Newark airport.
Continue reading “TSA Officer In Newark Caught Swiping $1000 Watch At Security Gate”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A thirty-six-year-old man who suffered a catastrophic brain injury as a result of a use of force by a King County Washington sheriff’s deputy in 2009 has died as a result of his injuries, according to a Thurston County forensic pathologist. The coroner’s office determined the death to be caused by a homicide. This does not necessarily mean that the homicide was criminal in nature. It means that the death was caused as a result of a person and is not necessarily criminal nature. Such a determination is within the purview of the County Prosecutor’s Office.
I find the use of force to be troubling, however the deputy was cleared by both an internal affairs investigation and a review by the County prosecutor’s office. I do not agree with the findings of the IA but I recognize it would have been a difficult criminal case presented to a jury.
Continue reading “Man Dies After Being Slammed Against Concrete Wall In 2009 By Deputy Sheriff”
ISIS again caused international outrage with pictures this week of its beheading of Ayham Hussein, 15, who was reportedly executed for listening to Western music. ISIS considers such influences to be anti-Islamic and subject to death under the medieval Sharia law system enforced by the militants.
Continue reading “ISIS Beheads Teenage Boy Caught Listening To Western Music”
Apple has decided to fight an unprecedented and highly controversial order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym that the company has to assist the government in breaking into one of its encrypted phones. Apple says that it does not have the technology and does not want to be part of such an effort to create a privacy stripping tool for the FBI. Pym seems to believe that she can order companies to become unwilling participants in surveillance research and development. I fail to see her legal basis for such an extraordinary order against a private company.
One of the most basic functions of government should be to require accurate descriptions of products in the market. I am a big believer in the free market and tend to resist government regulation whenever possible. However, the free market functions best when the government enforces the rules to prevent misleading and fraudulent practices. This week is an example of how labeling continues to mislead consumers. While parmesan cheese is often advertised as “100%” pure, it can include wood pulp and cheaper cheeses such as cheddar, Swiss, and mozzarella. One manufacturer, Castle Cheese, supplying Target actually had no parmesan in its “100 percent” parmesan cheese product.
We have previously discussed the disgusting fetish for “crush videos” — films where small animals and birds are crushed under stiletto heels, boots and objects or stabbed to death. Now, Ashley Nichole Richards, 23, and Brent Wayne Justice, 52, have been given long sentences for their roles in making such videos. Richards was sentenced to 10 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to three counts of animal cruelty while Justice, 52, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for cruelty to animals.
Continue reading “Two Texans Given Long Sentences For Production Of Animal Crush Videos”
We have previously discussed the controversy surrounding University of Missouri Assistant Professor of Communication Melissa Click who was caught on videotape obstructing a student journalist and calling for “muscle” to prevent him from covering a protest. She was charged with assault in that case. Now, a new videotape has emerged showing Click yelling profanities at police officers who were trying to clear protestors blocking traffic on campus. The new videotape below will obviously not help the already suspended academic.
We have previously dealt with the issue of judges arrested for DUI and how to address such cases in their continuing on the court (here and here and here and here and here). Another such case has arisen with the arrest in New York of Judge Leticia Astacio. While it was a Saturday morning, police say that Astacio was on her way to work when she had an accident with another car on Interstate 490. She refused to take a Breathalyzer and was arrested for DUI. Astacio is a former assistant district attorney who prosecuted drunk driving cases.
Continue reading “New York Judge Arrested For DUI On Way To Court”