Former mayor pleads guilty to 140 child pornography charges

Patrick Wojahn mugshot

Important Takeaways:

  • The former mayor of a Maryland college town pleaded guilty Wednesday to 140 charges stemming from child pornography possession and distribution, prosecutors said.
  • Patrick Wojahn had served as the mayor of College Park for about eight years before his resignation and arrest in March.
  • Wojahn pleaded guilty to 60 counts of distribution of child pornography, 40 counts of possession of child pornography, and 40 counts of possession of child pornography with the intention to distribute
  • “As a former elected official, the College Park Community put its faith and support in him to serve each resident and their best interests,” Braveboy said Wednesday. “Instead, he let them down in a most disgraceful way.”

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Hunter takes a plea to end a long running investigation by the DOJ

Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the extortion[a] of the poor, or the perversion[b] of justice and fairness in the government, [c] do not be astonished by the matter. For the high official is watched by a higher official, [d] and there are higher ones over them! [e]

Important Takeaways:

  • Hunter Biden Agrees to Plead Guilty to Federal Charges
  • President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been charged with failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon and has reached an agreement with the Justice Department, according to a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware.
  • As part of the agreement, made public Tuesday, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and is expected to reach an agreement with prosecutors on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user. It is somewhat unusual to resolve a federal criminal case at the same time the charges are filed in court, though it is not totally unheard of.
  • The deal ends a long-running Justice Department investigation into Biden’s second son, who has acknowledged struggling with addiction following the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden. It also averts a trial that would have generated days or weeks of distracting headlines for a White House that has strenuously sought to keep its distance from the Justice Department.
  • Christopher Clark, a lawyer for the younger Biden, said in a statement it was his understanding the five-year investigation had now been resolved.
  • The news comes as congressional Republicans pursue their own investigations into nearly every facet of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including examining foreign payments and other aspects of his finances. It also comes days after a 37-count indictment came down against former President Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents on his Florida estate, another case with even more dramatic political implications.

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Jury finds Murder for Murdaugh; faces 30 years to life in prison

Mark 13:12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Important Takeaways:

  • Jury Finds Alex Murdaugh Guilty of Murdering Wife and Son
  • A South Carolina jury on Thursday found disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty of the double murder of his wife and son after a nearly six-week trial.
  • Murdaugh reportedly stood still and did not speak or react as the judge read the jury’s verdict around 7:00 p.m. local time.
  • In addition to the double murder conviction, the jury found Murdaugh guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during a crime.
  • Murdaugh “faces 30 years to life in prison without parole for each murder charge,” the Associated Press reports.
  • Further, Murdaugh faces nearly 100 charges for various financial crimes, including fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and forgery, as CBS News reported. Murdaugh is also accused of stealing more than $8 million from his former law firm and former clients and trying to hire an assassin to kill him as part of a $10 million life insurance scam.

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They told you they would come after any one associated with Trump: Now Trump CFO pleads guilty will spend 5 months in Jail

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman

Important Takeaways:

  • Allen Weisselberg, longtime Trump executive, pleads guilty to tax fraud
  • The case is part of the churning legal maelstrom still surrounding Trump and his close allies, with local, state and federal authorities scrutinizing everything from his namesake business to his handling of classified government documents since leaving office.
  • Appearing in a Manhattan courtroom, Weisselberg, 75, acknowledged his part in the scenario outlined by prosecutors — and agreed to testify, if called, at a pending trial for the company. As part of his plea agreement, Weisselberg, Trump’s close and trusted associate for decades, would spend five months in jail, followed by five years of probation.

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Man guilty of murder in Toronto van attack, likely to face life in prison

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – A man who plowed a rented van into dozens of people in Toronto in 2018 is guilty of murdering 10 people and attempting to murder 16, a judge ruled on Wednesday, dismissing a defense argument that the suspect’s mental disorder left him with no idea how horrific his actions were.

Alek Minassian, 28, told police he was motivated by a desire to punish society for his perceived status as an “incel” – short for involuntary celibate – because he believed women would not have sex with him. Minassian had pleaded not criminally responsible.

But the defense failed to prove Minassian’s autism spectrum disorder deprived him of the capacity to know his actions were wrong, Judge Anne Molloy said in a verdict that was live-streamed on YouTube following a trial held virtually due to the pandemic.

Molloy referred to Minassian as “John Doe” to try to deny the accused the notoriety he said he desired.

“Mr. Doe thought about committing these crimes over a considerable period of time and made a considered decision to proceed. His attack on these 26 victims that day was an act of a reasoning mind notwithstanding its horrific nature and notwithstanding that he has no remorse for it, and no empathy for his victims.”

“This case has in many ways and on many days been a struggle,” Molloy said. “This accused committed a horrific crime – one of the most devastating tragedies this city has ever endured – for the purpose of achieving fame.”

Minassian’s lawyer argued his autism spectrum disorder prevented him from knowing what he was doing was wrong when he drove the van into pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk.

The attack took place in April 2018 when Minassian drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk on a major street just north of Toronto, hitting one person after another. Those killed ranged in age from 22 to 94.

A sentencing hearing will be scheduled and Minassian is likely to automatically get a life sentence, according to criminal lawyers following the case. A sentencing hearing will also allow for victim impact statements.

Minassian’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

Molloy read out the names of the people Minassian killed and injured, listing their injuries: from fractured bones to bleeding brains.

“He had a functioning, rational brain, one that perceived the reality of what he was doing…. He chose to commit the crimes anyway. Because it was what he really wanted to do.”

The outcome was unsurprising given the evidence presented at trial, said Toronto criminal lawyer Daniel Brown.

“It’s not to say that others couldn’t avail themselves of a ‘not criminally responsible’ defense but in Mr. Minassian’s situation, he simply couldn’t.”

First-degree murder carries a life sentence without parole eligibility for 25 years. The question now, Brown said, is whether the prosecution will seek to “stack” parole ineligibilities, for example so that 10 first-degree murder convictions render Minassian ineligible for parole for 250 years.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Grant McCool, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma pleads guilty to criminal charges

By Mike Spector

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Purdue Pharma LP pleaded guilty to criminal charges over the handling of its addictive prescription painkiller OxyContin, capping a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve an investigation into the drugmaker’s role in the U.S. opioid crisis.

During a court hearing conducted remotely on Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in New Jersey, Purdue pleaded guilty to three felonies covering widespread misconduct.

The criminal violations included conspiring to defraud U.S. officials and pay illegal kickbacks to both doctors and an electronic healthcare records vendor, all to help keep medically dubious opioid prescriptions flowing.

Members of the billionaire Sackler family who own Purdue were not part of Tuesday’s court proceedings and have not been criminally charged. They agreed in October to pay a separate $225 million civil penalty for allegedly causing false claims for OxyContin to be made to government healthcare programs such as Medicare. They have denied the allegations.

Purdue Chairman Steve Miller entered the guilty plea on the company’s behalf and admitted to its criminal conduct under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Stephen Ferketic. Of the three criminal counts against Purdue, two were for violations of a federal anti-kickback law while another charged the Stamford, Connecticut-based company with defrauding the U.S. and violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Purdue’s plea deal carries more than $6.5 billion in penalties, most of which will go unpaid. A $3.54 billion criminal fine is set to be considered alongside trillions of dollars in unsecured claims as part of Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Purdue agreed to pay $225 million toward a $2 billion criminal forfeiture, meanwhile, with the Justice Department foregoing the rest if the company completes a bankruptcy reorganization dissolving itself and shifting assets to a “public benefit company” or similar entity that steers the $1.775 billion unpaid portion to thousands of U.S. communities suing it over the opioid crisis.

A sentencing imposing those penalties is set to come down the line, near the time Purdue receives court approval for a bankruptcy reorganization.

(Reporting by Mike Spector in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Giles Elgood)

Singaporean pleads guilty in U.S. to acting as Chinese intelligence agent: Justice Department

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Singaporean man who set up a fake consulting site to solicit information from U.S. government and military workers has pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent of Chinese intelligence, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Sentencing for Jun Wei Yeo, also known as Dickson Yeo, will be in October, according to the department. The U.S. is cracking down on Chinese spying, with the FBI having interviewed dozens of visa holders about their possible ties to Chinese intelligence.

On Friday a Chinese researcher who took refuge in the San Francisco consulate was expected to appear in court on allegations she lied about her Chinese military service, while the U.S. counterintelligence agency chief warned China and other nations could interfere with November elections.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; editing by Grant McCool)

Iraqi teenager guilty of carrying out London train bombing

The explosive device, left by Ahmed Hassan, can be seen still smoking on the underground train at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain. Metropolitian Police/Handout via

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – An Iraqi teenager, who had come to Britain as an asylum seeker, was found guilty on Friday of attempted murder after detonating a homemade bomb on a packed rush-hour London commuter train, injuring 30 people, prosecutors and police said.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, was found guilty of trying to murder the passengers on board an underground train heading to central London on Sept. 15 last year, prosecutors said.

The bomb went off at Parsons Green station and flames engulfed the carriage, but it did not fully explode, limiting the scale of injuries in what authorities said was Britain’s fifth major attack of 2017.

“It was only a matter of luck that the device did not work as he intended or it could easily have led to the loss of innocent lives,” said Sue Hemming from Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service.

Hassan, who the court heard had spoken of his duty to hate Britain because of the deaths of his parents in Iraq, had been placed under Britain’s counter-radicalisation program at the time.

“He was very cunning and devious,” Dean Haydon, the head of London Police’s Counter Terrorism Command told BBC TV.

“On the face of it, Hassan was engaged on the program. But coming back to his devious nature, he kept it very secretive in relation to what he was doing, what he was planning, and nobody around him actually knew what his plot was.”

Haydon said a review of the counter-radicalisation program would now be undertaken.

On the day of the attack, the teenager left his foster home in Sunbury-on-Thames in west London and set the timer for the device, made with the highly volatile triacetone triperoxide (TATP) – known as “the mother of Satan”, in toilets at Wimbledon station where he boarded a District Line underground train, police said.

A handout photograph of Ahmed Hassan, who has been convicted of exploding a device on an underground train at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain. Picture supplied March 16, 2018. Metropolitian Police/Handout via REUTERS

A handout photograph of Ahmed Hassan, who has been convicted of exploding a device on an underground train at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain. Picture supplied March 16, 2018. Metropolitian Police/Handout via REUTERS

SHRAPNEL

He got off at the stop before Parsons Green leaving behind his bomb which was placed in a bucket. It was packed with more than two kilograms of metal shrapnel including screws, bolts, nails, knives and screw drivers, the court heard.

There were 93 passengers in the carriage when it detonated. They reported hearing a loud bang and seeing a fireball with one woman suffering burns to her hands, legs, and face causing her to lose the hair on her eyebrows and eyelashes. Others were hurt in a stampede to flee the scene.

Hassan was arrested in the southern port of Dover the following day carrying 2,320 pounds in cash and a new phone.

The court heard he arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry in 2015, claimed asylum and was placed with foster parents in Sunbury. He told British officials that he had been taken by force by Islamic State militants, who had threatened to kill his family members, and had given him military training.

Britain said at the time there was no evidence to suggest IS was responsible for the Parsons Green attack despite the group’s claims of responsibility.

Police and prosecutors said his motive was unclear. A teacher and a youth worker told the court Hassan had seemed confused and angry, and that he believed his father had been killed by U.S. bombing.

Hassan admitted to police he had made the bomb but said he had never intended to kill and merely wanted attention. He had pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder.

He told the court that he had been attracted to the idea of being a fugitive, chased across Europe by the police and Interpol.

However, the jury at London’s Old Bailey court convicted him of attempted murder and he will be sentenced at a later date.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Paul Sandle and Andrew Heavens)

Two ex-Trump aides charged in Russia probe, third pleads guilty

Two ex-Trump aides charged in Russia probe, third pleads guilty

By Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election charged President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide, Rick Gates, with money laundering on Monday.

A third former Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI, it was announced on Monday.

It was a sharp escalation of U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s five-month-old investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the election in Trump’s favor and into potential collusion by Trump aides.

Manafort, 68, a longtime Republican operative, and Gates were arraigned at a federal courthouse in Washington.

Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges in a 12-count indictment, ranging from money laundering to acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

The judge ordered house arrest for both men, and set a $10 million unsecured bond for Manafort and a $5 million unsecured bond for Gates. With unsecured bonds, they are released without having to pay but will owe money if they fail to appear in court. There will be another hearing on Thursday.

The developments in the Mueller probe weighed on the U.S. dollar, which slipped 0.5 percent against a basket of currencies.

Mueller’s investigation and others by congressional committees into alleged Russian efforts to influence the election have cast a shadow over Trump’s first nine months in office.

U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia interfered in the election by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Russia denies the allegations and Trump denies any collusion.

Neither Trump nor his campaign was mentioned in the indictment against Manafort and Gates. The charges, some going back more than a decade, center on Manafort’s work for Ukraine.

The indictment includes accusations of conspiracy against the United States, failure to report foreign bank accounts to the U.S. government and conspiracy to launder money, a count that carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence.

A White House spokeswoman said the indictment had nothing to do with Trump or his campaign and showed no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia.

“We’ve been saying from Day One there’s no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and nothing in the indictment today changes that at all,” spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing.

Manafort’s attorney, Kevin Downing said in a statement that there was no evidence the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. Downing said Manafort’s work for the Ukrainians ended in 2014, two years before he joined the Trump campaign.

Downing accused Mueller of using a “novel” legal theory to prosecute Manafort under a law requiring lobbyists to register with the Department of Justice when they are doing work for a foreign government.

GUILTY PLEA

In a development directly related to Trump’s 2016 election campaign, it emerged on Monday that Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser, pleaded guilty earlier this month to making false statements to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

Mueller’s office said Papadopoulos lied to FBI agents about the timing of contact between him and a professor in London who claimed to have information that would hurt Clinton.

Papadopoulos, a little-known former foreign policy adviser in the campaign, made a plea bargain that stated he had since “met with the Government on numerous occasions to provide information and answer questions,” according to a court document.

Sanders, the White House spokeswoman, said Papadopoulos’ role in the campaign was “extremely limited” and that he was a volunteer.

“He asked to do things (and) he was basically pushed back or not responded to in any way,” she said.

In a May 4 email quoted in the Papadopoulos indictment, a Trump campaign employee forwarded a message from Papadopoulos proposing a meeting between Trump and the Russian government to another campaign official.

The employee included a note, according to the indictment, that read: “Let’s discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

A source in Washington, who did not want to be identified and who has seen the email, said the sender was Manafort and the recipient was Gates.

Manafort ran the Trump campaign from June to August of 2016 before resigning amid reports he might have received millions of dollars in illegal payments from a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

FRUSTRATION

Trump reiterated his frustration on Monday with the Mueller probe, which he has called “a witch hunt.”

“Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Clinton.

Mueller has been investigating Manafort’s financial and real estate dealings and his prior work for a political group, the Party of Regions, which backed former pro-Kremlin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

Both Manafort and Gates generated tens of millions of dollars of income from Ukraine work and laundered money through scores of U.S. and foreign entities to hide payments from American authorities, the indictment said.

They concealed from the United States their work and revenue as agents of Ukrainian political parties and used their wealth to lead a “lavish lifestyle” without paying taxes on the income, it said.

The indictment said Manafort owned properties in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hamptons, Arlington, Virginia, and elsewhere.

Prosecutors said Manafort spent almost $1 million on eight rugs in two years and more than $1.3 million on clothes from shops in Beverly Hills, California, and New York City. They also said he had been making payments on four Range Rovers and a Mercedes-Benz.

Gates was a longtime business partner of Manafort and has ties to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. He also served as deputy to Manafort during his brief tenure as Trump’s campaign chairman.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Jan Wolfe, Megan Davies and Emily Flitter in New York.; Writing by Alistair Bell and Caren Bohan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Boston man found guilty in Islamic State beheading plot

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – A Boston-area man was found guilty on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit acts of international terrorism and supporting Islamic State for a 2015 plot to attack police and behead a conservative blogger who organized a “Draw Mohammed” contest.

David Wright, 28, was found guilty of five criminal charges for planning with his uncle and a friend to behead blogger Pamela Geller. The plot fell apart after Wright’s uncle said he wanted to kill law enforcement officers instead and was shot dead by police.

During a 3-1/2-week trial, federal prosecutors presented evidence that Wright, who lived in the Boston suburb of Everett, had read and viewed copious amounts of online propaganda from the militant group and vowed to join its cause. They also showed evidence suggesting he had been in touch with members of the Islamic State in Syria.

Wright, his uncle Usamaah Abdullah Rahim and friend Nicholas Rovinski had focused their attention on Pamela Geller, the blogger who organized the “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas, which she described as an exercise of free speech, though many Muslims consider cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed offensive.

Two gunman attacked that contest and were shot dead, leading Wright and his counterparts to hatch a plan to behead Geller in New York.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Andrew Hay)