One of the suspects was cornered and arrested by police officers, while the others in a getaway car escaped.

“I just want to warn a lot of businesses out there to be careful when you look at the checks,” said Romero. “Make sure it has the name of the bank in it – if you scan it and it’s denied, don’t cash it.”

Source

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Edwin Larry Berndt and his brother, Edward Christian Berndt, both 48 were arrested after police found their mother laying face down dead in a night gown.  The sons told authorities their mom fell down, and that they did not feed her or give her water while she laid there for days.

The brothers claim they did not report the death because they did not have money to bury her.

His brother said they didn’t give her any food or water while she lay on the floor.

Three days later, on Jan. 13, the elderly woman died, Edwin Berndt told police. He told them he remembered the date because it was a day after her 89th birthday.

Source

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Harrisburg, Pennsylvania– Police had no trouble identifying a Harrisburg man who was accused of robbing a bank because he provided identification to open a new account prior to crime, authorities say.

Tellers told police that Daniel E. Rahynes, 35, started an application, then announced to tellers, he was “actually there to rob the bank”. Rahynes drove away with a small amount of cash, and was involved in a car accident shortly after.

Rahynes is charged with robbery, as well DUI.

Read more at MercuryNews.com

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The student Eugene Allen, 14, took pictures while inside the cage, and later told his mother Latreshia Davis that he and other students were left unattended in the empty imprisonment.

WSDU reports that they have requested comment from the New Orleans Charter Schools Foundation and the Recovery School District, and have yet to receive a response.

Read entire story at WSDU.com

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“She has no prior record, no mental health issues, no anger management issues,” said Ferguson’s lawyer, Vicki Herr. “There is really no basis for her being confined without bail.”

Read entire article at CNN.com

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Knight broke in to the Northwest home of Washington Post writer Marc Fisher in December, police said. He helped himself to a number of items, including two laptop computers, a new winter coat and about $400 in cash.

Before leaving the scene of the crime, he put on the winter coat and posed with the cash for a photo he took of himself. He then posted his “loot” photo on Fisher’s son’s Facebook page, the writer said.

Read more at NBCwashington.com

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Florida — A Florida woman has been arrested for allegedly beating her roommate over Girl Scout cookies.

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Hersha Howard was arrested this past Sunday after launching a tirade about her Thin Mints at 1 a.m. and ravaging the apartment and her roommates.

Howard, who weighs 400 pounds, allegedly chased her roommate with scissors. She also jumped her and punched her.

Read more at NYDailyNews

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Rodney and Senya Saunders were arrested along with 3 others, and police have confiscated 9080 grams of marijuana with a street value of $90,800 as well as $10,476 in cash.  The two children are now in the custody of the Department of Human Services while the five people charged remain in police custody, NBC reports.

“We stopped everyone, searched them for everyone’s protection and we were astonished to find in the backpacks of these very young juveniles a total of seven pounds of marijuana,” said Scott Small, Chief Inspector of the Philadelphia Police.

Read more at NBCphiladelphia.com

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The man, John Hopkins, has been charged with rape, assault and unlawful imprisonment and was being held on $350,000 bail, prosecutors said Tuesday. It wasn’t clear who was representing him. Legal Aid was listed as his defense but he apparently has not yet been assigned an attorney.

The allegations, detailed in court documents, paint a picture of torture. Officers found the 27-year-old woman Saturday in the studio apartment in the fetal position, shaking, on the bed. A rope was bolted near the bed where he tied her to rape her, she said. Handcuffs she said were used to shackle her to the radiator were found nearby. By the bed, officers found a bag with a ball-gag, whip and a rope.

The woman was taken to a hospital with rectal hemorrhaging and bruising. Authorities withheld her name because of the nature of her complaint.

Authorities were called to the apartment Saturday after the woman’s mother contacted authorities in Wisconsin. The woman apparently had broken free that day and contacted her mother, saying she was going to kill herself because she couldn’t bear to be locked up anymore, police said. It’s not clear why she didn’t call 911 herself. Police arrived and found both the man and woman in the apartment.

The woman told police she met Hopkins online, and he bought her a one-way ticket to New York City on Feb. 4. He met her at the airport, and the two took a taxi to his apartment in the East Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Once inside, according to court documents, he told her she was going to be his slave. Hopkins forced her to call him “master” and let her leave only to go to work, the documents said. She had a job as a chef at a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and she left at least once but for some reason returned, authorities said, though it’s not clear why. When she did, she was handcuffed again. During the eight days, she was blindfolded, gagged and repeatedly raped and forced to perform oral sex, according to court documents.

It’s not clear how long Hopkins had been living at the four-story red brick building. Messages left with Hopkins’ neighbors weren’t returned, and calls to possible relatives went unanswered.

Hopkins was arrested in 2004 for misdemeanor assault in a domestic violence incident, but the case was dropped. It’s not clear what he was advertising on Craigslist or whether the woman had any idea what she was signing up for when she stepped off the plane. He was due in court Friday.

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In court Tuesday, a defense psychologist testified that Swann Jr. is not a threat and that his psychosis is under control, NBC Washington’s Pat Collins reported. His father testified that he can control his son.

In the winter and spring of 1993, James E. Swann Jr. killed four people and injured five others in shotgun attacks he carried out in the Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods.

The court ordered him confined indefinitely to the Saint Elizabeths psychiatric treatment facility.

Now, James Swann Sr., the patient’s father, would like to spend 12 hours with his son so they can go fishing or bowling or out to eat like they used to. So James Jr. has submitted to be temporarily released from St. Elizabeths.

The government wants to block the release.

VIDEO:

Read more at NBCwashington.com

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Maksim Gelman had a bloodied kitchen knife when he was taken into police custody at about 9 a.m. Saturday after a nightlong manhunt, police said.

“It’s so horrendous and bizarre. We have no reason to know why he did this,” said police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who held up a photo of the knife that he said Gelman had used to slash a subway rider on the head and neck before he was apprehended. The man survived.

“I don’t recall seeing anything like this,” said Kelly, who has spent decades working for the New York Police Department.

He said charges were pending against Gelman.

The stabbing spree started just after 5 a.m. Friday, when police say Gelman fatally knifed his stepfather, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, at their apartment in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. Gelman had gotten into a fight with his mother after she refused to allow him to use her Lexus, and Kuznetsov intervened and was attacked, Kelly said.

Police found the 54-year-old man’s body at his home in the predominantly Eastern European immigrant neighborhood. The Ukrainian-born Gelman and his mother became naturalized U.S. citizens in 2004 or 2005, Kelly said.

At about 10:30 a.m., several blocks away, Gelman entered the home of his ex-girlfriend and used a kitchen knife to fatally stab her mother, 56-year-old Anna Bulchenko, Kelly said. When 20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko arrived home at about 4 p.m., she found her mother dead in a pool of blood and called 911, police said.

Gelman apparently was still in the house, chasing Bulchenko as she fled outside and stabbing her 11 times as she died, Kelly said.

He then sped away in the Lexus to Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood, rear-ending a Pontiac. The driver confronted Gelman and was stabbed three times in the chest but survived and was in stable condition, Kelly said.

Gelman drove off in the Pontiac, hitting 62-year-old pedestrian Stephen Tanenbaum, who died of his injuries, police said. He later abandoned the car, engine running, in the driveway of a private house in Midwood, not far from a freight railroad line “Gelman frequented as a graffiti artist,” Kelly said.

Gelman was not seen again until just before 1 a.m. Saturday, when he confronted a livery cab driver in the Crown Heights area and stabbed him, Kelly said. Shortly after, he approached a couple in a Nissan, stabbing the man multiple times in the hand before hijacking the car, police said. Both men survived.

Just after 8 a.m. Saturday, passengers on a southbound No. 1 train in upper Manhattan noticed that a man on the train matched photos of Gelman they had seen in newspapers.

One passenger on the train got off at West 96th Street, approached officers on the platform and told them that a man fitting Gelman’s description knocked a newspaper out of her hand, saying, “Do you believe what they’re writing about me?” Kelly said.

Gelman jumped off the train at the West 34th Street station, crossed the tracks and hopped on a northbound No. 3 train, where he stabbed a passenger, the commissioner said.

Officers were in the driver’s compartment of the train after hearing reports that Gelman might be on board. Gelman made his way up to the driver’s door and pounded on it, “claiming that he was the police,” Kelly said.

One of the officers threw open the door and wrestled Gelman to the ground, knocking the knife from his hand, Kelly said.

He was taken into custody from the train at Times Square. None of Gelman’s relatives could be reached for comment Saturday.

“I saw a stream of people coming from the front of the train. They looked upset. They had white faces,” Hyun Jo of East Orange, N.J., told the New York Post. “The conductor announced they ‘found the guy who killed four people yesterday.’ I saw the blood in the other car when they let us off. It was crazy.”

Kelly described Gelman as an unemployed drug user with 10 previous arrests – mostly linked to graffiti and drugs.

The commissioner said the suspect’s statements to police were “pretty incoherent” – including one in which he stated that “she had to die.” Kelly said he wasn’t sure if that was a reference to the ex-girlfriend or someone else.

A longtime friend of Yelena Bulchenko, Angela Akopyan, said the first time she heard of Gelman was Friday. “I never heard of him prior to yesterday. Ever in my life,” she said.

She described Bulchenko as “always happy.” “She was just a really good person to be around,” Akopyan said.

Bulchenko worked as a receptionist at a dental office in Brooklyn, and had attended Kingsborough Community College, she said. The last time Akopyan saw her was Tuesday, when a group of friends got together at an Applebee’s. “It was the first time we saw each other in the past two weeks. We were making plans for the weekend like we always do,” Akopyan said. “And then it never happened.”

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He has been living in the cell since Feb. 1 and plans to stay there throughout the month of February.

“Instead of the young bucks going to jail to find out for themselves, I’m bringing the jail to the young bucks,” Ta’Bon said.

The gray structure, which took about 30 hours to build, is made of plywood and wallboard and sits in a vacant lot in the Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood. The cell has some furnishings and uses a generator for heat and electricity.

On a bitterly cold morning this week, Ta’Bon could be heard telling four high school students about the 19-cent hourly wage earned by prisoners, which might help them buy a 24-cent cup of instant noodles in the commissary.

Ta’Bon breaks into rhyme at one point, warning the boys to learn from his mistakes. He ends with a phrase that he makes the students repeat: “Jail is for suckers.”

The teens, who attend an alternative school for at-risk youth, were brought to the site by a city police officer. Ta’Bon’s message seemed to hit the mark.

“He was speaking life,” said sophomore Brandon Jiles, 16. “He made me think twice.”

Ta’Bon, 36, wears an orange jumpsuit and unshackled handcuffs. He said the time not spent talking to visitors is used to write a book inspired by the letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from jail in Birmingham, Ala. He’s also writing music.

“I really feel like I’m doing time right now,” he said. “I’m looking at cars drive past, people going to restaurants. I can’t move. I’m not free.”

He does have a few amenities that he did not have during his time at the state prison in Albion, Pa. – namely a laptop and cell phone. But he still has copies of the prison’s rules, which he shows to anyone who doubts what life is like in stir.

He has a cot and blankets, and his wife and friends deliver food. When nature calls, he uses a portable toilet across the street.

The fickle heat in his cell makes February’s often subzero temperatures seem even colder. He said he chose the month to represent life’s struggles and in part to coincide with Black History Month. Most of Philadelphia’s homicide victims are black, though Ta’Bon noted that “bullets and jails don’t care what color you are.”

Ta’Bon said he has permission from the owner of the vacant lot and hopes that the few questions he’s received about city permits will fall by the wayside. Because he needs no reminder of what’s at stake: Ta’Bon built the cell underneath a huge mural bearing the names of the city’s murder victims in 2006 – all 406 of them.

Nicole Williams, 41, of Philadelphia stopped by to lend her support.

“It’s a positive message,” she said, “and the children need this.”

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County Assistant Prosecutor Arianne Slay is saying that Kelly stabbed the girl 12 times in her head, back and hands. She played dead to get him to stop the attack. She also says that Kelly confessed to trying to kill her. He is being charged with assault with intent to murder and being held on a $1 million bond.

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Ypsilanti High Student Accused of Stabbing Teen Girl, 17: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Read more at BVblackspin.com

Cuba’s Prensa Latina agency says Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez has a civil registry document that states she was born on Feb. 2, 1885, in the town of Ceiba Hueca, where she still lives.

Her 125th birthday celebration last year was covered extensively in the island’s state-run media, but she isn’t recognized by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which verifies information for Guinness World Records.

The claim would make her the world’s oldest person by more than a decade. At 114 years old, American Besse Cooper of Georgia is recognized as the world’s oldest person.

Kenneth D. McGhee, of Columbus, was charged with child molestation and providing false information, the Ledger-Enquirer reported. McGhee allegedly lied to police about his age when he was arrested after running to a store across the street, police told the newspaper.

A woman in the restaurant told police McGhee sat down at the end of a table she was sharing with her two children. Then she noticed he had exposed himself and was touching himself, police said.

Read more at AJC.com

According to one group tracking the numbers, Frayser has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Memphis. The new campaign, called “No Baby!” is designed to try to get teen girls and boys to prevent pregnancies; at the same time, Memphis City School officials are working on a way to help students more effectively deal with unplanned pregnancies.

The startling news was confirmed by a high ranking city official and comes as the community plans to roll out a new initiative to help combat the problem.

However, one Frayser High School graduate says teen pregnancy is not a new problem for the school.

VIDEO:

“When we would come back from summer break, there would be a thousand people pregnant. We were like, what’s going on?” joked Alicia Williamson, who graduated from Frayser in 2004.

“There were a whole lot of bellies. You had to watch out so you didn’t bump into them. Being 2011, I thought a lot of them would have thought this is not the right way to go, having babies during school time,” she added.

The organization, Girls, Inc. teaches girls about preventing pregnancy.

Deborah Hester Harrison, who heads the organization, says Memphis’ teen pregnancy rate stands at between 15 and 20 percent, almost twice the national average.

In the Frayser zip code, the rate is about 26 percent. Harrison partly blames the media.

Read more at ChicagoTribune.com

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While Denny Obermiller served nine years in prison for aggravated assault and kidnapping, his grandmother spent money she didn’t have on care packages to make his life more comfortable. After being released, Olberm

And when Obermiller finally was released in 2009, she opened her home to him over her husband’s objections that their grandson was too dangerous to have around.

The grandfather’s intuition turned out to be correct.

In August, Obermiller killed them both — handcuffed and strangled them in their Maple Heights home. And he raped his grandmother. Her decomposing body was found days later, strewn with used condoms.

Read more at Cleveland.com

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During the investigation, several photos where found on Bradley’s phone of his 2-year-old son standing at a table packaging marijuana.

Photos showed the child placing marijuana into a jar. The pictures also showed rolling paper and a lighter on the table.

Read more at NewsChannel5.com

The Post says the following pitch was used in the ad:

“we had a kid but we just can’t handle it right now in our lives. she is up to date on her vaccinations medical records will be provided. we have been calling her Juliet but you can rename her if you want. sorry if you think this is wrong but we think the best way of insuring a happy life for her is to give her to an affluent couple that wants to have kids enough [sic] to pay for it. pics on request.”

Read more at NBCwashington.com

The young man, troubled by a threat of eviction from the rent-regulated apartment, was fresh out of psychiatric treatment, relatives said.

Read more at NYdailynews.com

VIDEO:

Mom said dead tot possessed by demon: wane.com

DNA results are still pending to definitively determine whether remains found Dec. 21 at a home in which Lawson was living are those of her 3-year-old son, Jezaih King. An autopsy found the cause of death for the young child found in the house to be asphyxia due to compression of the neck.

According to the probable cause affidavit, Lawson told authorities that Jezaih died more than a year ago after she gave him three doses of oil and vinegar and then held his mouth shut for 10 minutes until he stopped struggling.

No attorney for Lawson was listed in court records Wednesday. She was being held in the Allen County Jail on $130,000 bond. An initial court hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

During an initial interview, Lawson said she believed her children were possessed by demons, according to police. She also said she could not take Jezaih’s temper tantrums.

Police said she told them she gave both children doses of oil and vinegar, but that she left her 10-year-old daughter alone when she spit it out.

According to the court document, the daughter told police how Lawson put Jezaih’s body on a couch and called her over to say goodbye to her brother. The girl said her mother then placed Jezaih on a bed and told her to pray over her dead sibling.

A former roommate told police Jezaih died in an apartment on Nov. 19, 2009, according to court records.

Lawson was taken into custody on Dec. 21. Someone tipped off authorities about where she was after media reported that Fort Wayne police were looking for a missing family of three. Lawson’s daughter was placed in protective custody.

Inside the ransacked home, police officers found notes left on two beds reading, “thank you merry christmas.” The Athens Banner-Herald reports that the notes were scrawled on white cards with a yellow marker.

Police were not immediately sure what was missing since the residents were traveling.

The question for the judge or jurors who will hear the case isn’t whether Clara Walker gave Leon Walker, 33, permission to inspect her Google e-mail; he admits she didn’t know what he was up to until her e-mail messages became an issue in their divorce and child custody battle.

But Leon Walker claims that he had every right to poke around in the computer because he was concerned that his wife’s lover — the second of her two former husbands — might be abusive to her around their young children. Walker also contends that he had the right to go on the computer because he bought it, it was in his home, and she left the password lying around.

Read entire article at MSNBC.com

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Sandy McGriff, cofounder of the Church of the Living God, tells The Dallas Morning News that she used poor judgment when she entered a church member’s home through a broken window and removed valuable property.

McGriff faces charges of burglary of habitation and resisting arrest. She posted a $26,000 bond and was released from the Dallas County Jail.

McGriff says she saw two men on the side of the home and decided to check it out. That’s when she says she found the broken window.

A neighbor called police, who found McGriff carrying two fur coats out of the home.

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Thirty-three-year-old Leon Walker used his wife’s password to get into her Gmail account. Clara Walker filed for a divorce, which was granted this month.

Leon Walker tells The Oakland Press of Pontiac he was trying to protect the couple’s children from neglect and calls the case a “miscarriage of justice.”

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Sydney Turner says the charge is justified.

Privacy law writer Frederick Lane tells the Detroit Free Press the law typically is used to prosecute identity theft and stealing trade secrets. He says he questions if a wife can expect privacy on a computer she shares with her husband.

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Never has the victim, Serita Agnew’s faith been so shaken.

VIDEO:

“I’m still having a hard time,” Agnew said. “I don’t know what it was about.”

Read entire article at KHOU.com

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“That’s why I started going after churches. Idon’t case them out,” he said. “I just walk by and get angry.”

Linden waxed theological with detectives looking to link him to other church robberies, according to court papers filed in the Bronx.

“How could (God) let this happen?” he said of the sex abuse scandal that has drawn an extraordinary series of apologies from Pope Benedict. “How can there be a God?”

Linden also told cops he became “angry at God” after witnessing his mother’s murder and having a “miserable” childhood in foster care, sources said.

Read entire article at NYdailynews.com

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Guards at the home told police that a male suspect was inside the residence. But was he making off with bling, or cases of Vitamin Water (50 Cent is an investor)? No, just a nice bottle of wine.

According to a news release from the Farmington (Conn.) Police Department, the suspect, later identified as Alexander Hernandez, “was hiding in a closet, drinking a bottle of wine he had stolen from the residence.” Another suspect (this one not raiding the wine stash), Santos Padilla, was found hiding in another section of the house. Both were in possession of marijuana when they were arrested.

Read entire article at TodayShow.com

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State police said Matthew Lacroix, 27, admitted to posting the page on Wednesday morning after detectives visited a home at 20 Ontario St. in West Warwick, where there was a computer with an IP address linked to the fraudulent Facebook account.

“The couple living there knew nothing about it, but in the course of the conversation, they mentioned that their neighbor was a corrections employee,” said state police Capt. James Demers. “Detectives went next door and Lacroix initially denied having anything to do with the page but later admitted it because he did not want to get his neighbors in trouble.”

Demers said Lacroix, who was friendly with the people next door, would drop into their house occasionally and had access to their computer, which he used to set up the Facebook account.

Tracey E. Zeckhausen, corrections spokeswoman, said the department’s internal affairs unit had first learned about the page last August and later turned it over to the state police. She said that within hours of the page first being noticed, the department contacted Facebook to have the page taken down.

Lacroix has been employed at the ACI for the last five years with an annual salary of $49,831. On Wednesday he pleaded guilty to a charge of “use of fraudulent information” in an arraignment in Third Division District Court and was ordered to pay a $500 fine into the Victims Indemnity Fund.

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“You tend to, like, get upset when somebody trying to harm the family jewels!” laughs Sheldon Gonzalez. He nearly lost the the family jewels to fire! Good thing he has a sense of humor.

The one accused of torching his crotch is his girlfriend Berlinda Dixon-Newbold. In her mug shot, she had a tear in her eye as she booked into the Broward County Jail.
VIDEO:

“The bottom of his shirt and his pants were on fire in the crotch area,” said Broward Circuit Judge John Hurley as he began a bond hearing for Newbold.

She’s charged with aggravated assault. The judge said she was lucky not to be charged with arson. Gonzalez told police the trouble began Tuesday night – he got home late – she needed attention – but he was tired and dosed off on the couch…then – what a rude awakening. “The flame was right here,” he said, pointing at his crotch.

“I just felt the heat in my groin area and I just reacted and she was right over me with…the lighter burning the t-shirt I was wearing.

“ “Did you see any fire down there?” asked CBS 4’s Ted Scouten. “Yes,” he said. One can imagine – Gonzalez moved quickly to douse that burning crotch – and he got the flames out fast.

As for getting back with Berlinda – Gonzalez is ready to douse that flame too…in fact –she’s not even allowed anywhere near him. “You have to stay 500 feet from him at all times,” ordered Judge Hurley.

And he continued. “You’re not allowed to possess any lighters or any matches either.”

Read entire article at Miami.CBSlocal.com

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But he denied killing anyone.

“I’m guilty of being an a——,” he said Monday, “but not of murder.”

Ditullio, 24, is accused in a 2006 double stabbing that injured a woman and left a teenager dead. He went to trial last year on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder, but the jury, leaning toward acquittal, ended up deadlocked.

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He took the stand in his own defense then and again Monday, calmly answering questions, never losing his temper and revealing much about his mentality at the time.

Ditullio said he was working as a tattoo apprentice in New Port Richey when a friend introduced him to the American Nazi group living in a mobile home on Teak Street.

“He suggested there would be some tattoo work I could make some money on,” he said.

But he quickly formed stronger ties.

“I was blown away, man. I get to this place. It’s like a 19-year-old’s dream. Everybody was drinking. There was guns everywhere. I was blown away by the theatrics,” he said.

“You viewed this group as a family?” one of his attorneys, J. Jervis Wise, asked him.

“As a brotherhood, as a family, absolutely,” Ditullio said.

He felt a particular bond with Brian Buckley, the group’s president, who is now serving a prison sentence for burglary.

“I was just overwhelmed with finding a father figure in my life,” Ditullio said.

He soon became a prospect, vying for full membership. That meant he had to follow orders, wear a uniform, perform manual labor and submit to hazing.

He also took part in harassing the neighbors next door: a woman named Patricia Wells, who lived there with her son, Brandon Wininger, who was gay. Kristofer King, a friend of Wininger, often stayed over.

Ditullio said he didn’t harbor any particular malice toward gay people, but he admitted shouting slurs at Wininger.

On March 22, authorities say, Ditullio put on a gas mask and barged into Wells’ house, stabbing her in the face and hands as she ran to a bedroom where King was using the computer. Then he turned on King, 17, who died of his stab wounds.

But Ditullio testified that he never left the neo-Nazi house that night after the group had forced a familiar hazing ritual on him: lacing his drink with Xanax, then taunting to him to stay awake.

He said he was starting to pass out on the couch when Shawn Plott, another group member, tossed the gas mask at him and told him to hang it up.

“He had the look on his face like when an animal sees a human for the first time,” Ditullio said. “He was shaken.”

Ditullio said Plott was wearing khaki pants and a white T-shirt — the same clothes Wells described her attacker as wearing. She also said the attacker had no tattoos on his arms, and Ditullio’s lawyer had him show the jury the tattoos that cover both of his arms.

Ditullio was soon alone in the compound, thinking another hazing was unfolding. They called it “code red” and his challenge was to stay inside with guns, make sure they were loaded and guard the compound.

He had no idea, he said, what had happened next door.

In and out of sleep, he said the next thing he knew, there were deputies everywhere, surrounding the compound.

Read entire article at TampaBay.com

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Milwaukee — A sign excluding black people from a future business is enraging some people in a small town. Now, the man who put it up is speaking out.

Federal and State law says if the business is open to the public, prohibiting people based on race is illegal. If the man’s proposed gentlemen’s club was going to be a private club, then an African American historian says he could discriminate. Legalities aside, his is a sign that many say is appalling.

“If I’ve got a problem with you it’s going to be on the front of my store,” says Mark Prior.

Prior posted his ‘No Negros Allowed’ sign after he says he had some problems with black people in the past and needed to make a policy against them.

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“I’m going to stick to my guns because I think I have the right as a business owner to reject service to anyone. It’s not all the black people there are just a few bad ones,” Prior says of his problems in the past. Prior wants to open a gentlemen’s club in a building next to the Abbotsford city hall and library. He says he moved his sign inside after someone with the city asked him to remove it. “Our mistake is sometimes we look for logic in something that is just plain stupid,” says Dr. Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, an African American historian at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Ducksworth-Lawton says she feels Prior is out to get attention. She says the second he opens his business, he’ll be in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Read entire article at WEAU.com

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Oklahoma’s FOX 23 News found out about “Jus N Walk” and his Facebook page, which, sadly, no longer contains the photographs of Walker taking bong rips, drinking hooch and licking shanks. He likes fantasy novels, the movie Natural Born Killers, and, according to FOX 23, adheres to white power ideology. Watch the news report above.

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After this report aired, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections moved Jus N Walk from the medium security Granite Reformatory to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Read entire article at Gawker.com

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Conrad Zdzierak, 30, pleaded guilty Monday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to one count of aggravated robbery and five counts of robbery in a plea deal with prosecutors. He faces up to 35 years in prison at his Jan. 7 sentencing.

In exchange, prosecutors dismissed 12 charges and decided not to seek indictments for other crimes, prosecutor’s spokeswoman Julie Wilson said Tuesday.

“Conrad apologizes to everyone, is sorry for any harm he has caused and accepts responsibility for his actions,” his lawyer Christopher McDowell said.

Zdzierak stole about $15,000 in the robberies of four banks, a credit union and a pharmacy that occurred in March and April — crimes in which witnesses reported that the robber was black and surveillance video appeared to show a black man.

Zdzierak’s resemblance to the black man who was initially arrested was so similar that some witnesses even identified a photo of the black man as the one who robbed them, McDowell said.

The prosecutor’s office would not release the name of the wrongly accused man.

Read entire article at FoxNews.com

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White Man Robs Banks Disguised As Black Man

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Police in this south-central Pennsylvania city are still piecing together how the parents of five children — ranging in age from 2 to 13 — managed to conceal them for so many years. And why.

“I don’t know what would possess them at all,” said detective Dana Ward Jr., who tracked down the children after a child welfare agency received an anonymous tip about the clandestine family.

Ward charged Louann Bowers, 33, and Sinhue Johnson, 45, with five felony counts of child endangerment. They are scheduled to be in court Friday, though Bowers’ lawyer said she will waive her right to an arraignment. Both are locked up in York County Prison.

Bowers ran away from “a very chaotic household” when she was 16 and “didn’t want to be found,” attorney Ronald Gross said.

“I think, unfortunately, Mom’s desire to not be found by her family impacted the children’s growth,” he said. “She realizes now, ‘I should have done it differently.’”

Johnson’s public defender did not return a phone message seeking comment on the case, which was first reported by The York Dispatch and York Daily Record.

Years of isolation have taken their toll on the siblings. Now living in foster homes, “some of the children suffer health and vision issues,” Ward wrote in an affidavit. “None of the children are at their expected education levels, and there are possible mental health issues.”

Since their discovery, the children have been vaccinated and the older ones have been enrolled in school.

York County Children and Youth Services became aware of the family through anonymous tips in 2003 and again in 2007, but police said Johnson refused to cooperate with caseworkers.

The agency got another anonymous referral in 2009, this time from someone claiming to be a family member who had seen the children. The agency contacted Johnson again, but he remained uncooperative, court documents state.

That led caseworkers to obtain a court order granting them permission to enter the dilapidated house on South Duke Street. By the time they arrived, the family had fled.

Ward said it appeared that all seven family members had lived in a single room on the second floor. He said all the utilities were shut off. Rainwater came through the leaky roof and was collected in buckets.

Police tracked the family to a hotel outside York. Johnson was gone, but Bowers opened the door, her head concealed by a dark veil. The detective found the children hiding in a bathroom, three girls and two boys. They hadn’t bathed and appeared unkempt. They left with investigators without saying a word — and refused to provide any information.

“They did say that they were not permitted to talk about the family or the living conditions,” Ward said.

The lack of cooperation from either the children or Johnson and Bowers has stymied investigators’ efforts to learn more about the family’s circumstances.

The fact that almost no one knew about the children is even more puzzling because of the urban setting in which they lived. Neighbors say they never saw them, not even once.

Charlton Shaw, 56, a roofer who lives several doors down, said he was unaware of the children’s existence until Johnson and Bowers were arrested. “I said, holy heck, how did they do that? You never heard a sound. No kids crying, no kids coming or going,” said Shaw, who has lived on the block for 10 years. “How do you mess up the kids’ futures like that?”

Gross disputed the notion that his client was hiding her children but acknowledged the family maintained a “very close network of individuals.”

Gross said the children were home-schooled, but Ward said he could find no evidence of it. Parents of home-schooled children are required by law to register with the district in which they live, provide evidence of immunizations and follow approved curricula.

Gross said Bowers has studied more than 70 religions and adheres to a faith related to Islam.

“She essentially doesn’t show her face, except to her husband,” Gross said. He said the family opposes vaccinations “based on some beliefs about impurity and pricks of the skin.”

He declined to comment about the apparent lack of birth certificates.

“She understands she had some shortcomings as a parent, but her love and desire to have the children and wanting to be there for her children has not changed,” Gross said.

Gross said Johnson was in the midst of rehabbing the house on South Duke Street, and that the family spent most of its time in Washington, D.C. But Ward said he could find no evidence the family ever lived in Washington.

“There are still a lot of unanswered questions from our end,” Ward said, “because no one will talk to us.”

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CLEARWATER– Donald O’Leary, 67, has taken his share of lumps in 40 years as a practicing lawyer, but nothing like what happened in a Pinellas courtroom this morning.

O’Leary’s client, Trenton Maverick Herron, 30, punched O’Leary it the back of the head moments after Herron received a life sentence for armed robbery in a court division that specializes career criminals.

“He got sentenced to life and hit me,” O’Leary said.

The veteran lawyer said he had his back turned to Herron when the convicted inmate struck a blow out of the blue.

“I’ve got a big lump on the back of my head,” O’Leary said.

The blow came despite Herron’s decision to defend himself during the trial, leaving O’Leary to serve as a regional defense counsel, sitting by and giving procedural advice when Herron asked for it.

“My function was to answer any questions he had,” said O’Leary.

The lawyer said Herron gave no indication he was angry at him.

They had even spent some time together huddled in a cell behind the courtroom before the sentencing.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Joseph Bulone decided Herron should spend the rest of his days behind bars.

It’s not clear what more the legal system could do to punish Herron, but he will face consequences for hitting his lawyer.

“He was charged with a felony for battery on his attorney it the courtroom,” said Pinellas Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Tom Nestor.

O’Leary said he doesn’t blame any of the courtroom security officers in the attack.

“I’ve been working with those guys for 40 years,” O’Leary said. “I’ve got no problem with them.”

The attorney said his wife is helping him keep ice packs on the back of his head to hold down the swelling and another attorney will have to represent Herron on the battery charge because of the conflict of interest.

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The Rev. Cedric Miller confirmed the information reported Saturday by the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, which cited testimony he gave in a criminal case in 2003. The relationship had ended by that time.

Miller gained national attention when he issued the Facebook edict this week. He said it came about because much of the marital counseling he has performed over the past year and a half has concerned infidelity stemming from the social-networking website.

The 48-year-old leader of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune Township had claimed Facebook ignites old passions, and he ordered about 50 married church officials to delete their accounts with the social networking site or resign from their leadership positions.

Miller had previously asked married congregants to share their login information with their spouses — as he does — and now plans to suggest that they give up Facebook altogether. The minister also said he would leave the site this week.

In court testimony he gave in April 2003, Miller said his wife had an extramarital affair with the church assistant. Miller said he participated in many of the sexual encounters and said the assistant’s wife was sometimes present, too.

Miller said the dalliances — which occurred in the Millers’ home — sometimes took place during Thursday Bible study meetings and Sundays after church. But the minister said the encounters “came to a crashing halt” when several women in the church accused the assistant of having sex with them.

The testimony was given in connection with a criminal case against the assistant that was eventually dismissed. The names of the church assistant and his wife were not disclosed, and Miller told the newspaper that he was concerned that revisiting the incident would “irreparably” hurt some people.

“It has come to my attention that a very painful part of my past has resurfaced,” Miller wrote in an e-mail sent Friday. Noting that his court testimony was mailed to his church leaders and other pastors several years ago, Miller said, “This was resolved at that time and accordingly we will not allow it to detract from our mission at hand to save as many marriages as we can.”

Miller said people must look at his Facebook directives in the proper context.

“My life as a minister, husband, father and friend has led me to the conviction that I must do all that I can to help as many people strengthen, preserve and repair the often times fragile cords of marriage,” Miller wrote.

A message left by The Associated Press for the church’s pastor was not immediately returned Saturday.

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Michael Beatty was shot to death in the street just around the corner from a convenience store.

The graphic video footage shows startled customers scrambling for cover as a masked gunman running after Beatty.

The suspect appears to be shooting as he is chasing Beatty.

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Another angle of the shooting captures the tail end of the crime as the suspect, a black male, jumps into a black 1999 Nissan Maxima that was driving down the street and was likely the getaway vehicle.

Police have not announced a possible motive in the shooting, but would say that Beatty was definitely targeted.

Beatty’s family spoke Tuesday, asking any witnesses to come forward to help catch his killer.

Read entire article at WBLR.com

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A former bride-to-be is now paralyzed and has put off plans to marry after a bachelorette party prank went terribly wrong.

Rachelle Friedman was paralyzed from the chest down after her best friend and bridesmaid pushed her into the shallow end of a pool. Friedman, 25, snapped her neck and floated to the surface.

While Friedman and her fiance, Chris Chapman, remain a couple, health insurance has kept the pair from tying the knot. Friedman’s health insurance is limited and she must rely on medicaid to cover the cost of her care. Marrying Chapman would mean that their combined income would disqualify her from receiving government help.

The former aerobics and dance instructor told ABC that she always worried about an incident like this:

“I was always kind of scared something was going to mess up my perfect world,” she said. “It was literally perfect but it completely changed and that can happen to anyone.”

“But I’ve learned that even if things do change you can still make your world perfect,” she said. “It’s just extremely different, we do everything differently now.”

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Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

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