Terrell Campbell, 29, of Brooklyn, appeared in a Mineola courtroom Tuesday morning and pleaded not guilty to a Monday indictment on two counts of assault, one count of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of unlawful possession of noxious materials in connection with an attack on Nafiah Ikram on March 17, 2021. Ikram, then a 21-year-old Hofstra student, was splashed with sulfuric acid in her driveway by a hooded and masked assailant, leaving her with second- and third-degree burns on her face.
"Untraceable ghost guns put New Yorkers in danger and enable those who are barred from owning guns to obtain deadly weapons," said AG James. "Lawrence Destefano and his company Indie Guns are accused of flooding New York with illegal firearms, and we are determined to bring him to justice. I will not tolerate illegal and dangerous weapons in our communities, and I thank our partners in law enforcement for their work to shut down this ghost gun supplier."
Valentino Luchin, 62, was arrested in September after hitting three banks, San Francisco police said. According to police, Luchin passed notes to bank workers demanding cash. He allegedly robbed a bank on the 1100 block of Grant Avenue of $300 and stole about $2,500 from a Bank of America on Stockton Street. He also attempted to rob a bank on the 400 block of Columbus but failed to walk away with any money. The banks are all within a few blocks of one another.
The superseding indictment alleges that Maduro and other top Venezuelan public officials have, for the past two decades, worked closely with international drug trafficking organizations to ship illicit drugs into the US while enriching themselves. The validity of the US complaint against Maduro and wife Cilia Flores is likely to be challenged in federal court in the New York on Monday over whether, as a foreign head of state, he can be put on trial in the US.
A New Jersey actor whose credits include HBO's hit The Sopranos, as well as the films J. Edgar and The Prestige, has been indicted on charges related to a road rage incident, during which he shot a woman in the face near Stockton University, police said. Ernest Heinz is facing 31 counts in connection with the violent rampage, including first-degree attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses, NJ Advance Media reported.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA funds and using a substantial portion of the dough to fund her 2022 campaign to join the House of Representatives. The Justice Department said Cherfilus-McCormick's family healthcare company received a $5 million overpay for a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. Rather than return the funds, the Democratic lawmaker routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source, according to the Justice Department's announcement. She conspired with multiple people, including her older brother, Edwin Cherfilus, to pull off the scam.
Major League Baseball said its authorized gaming operators will cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays, a day after two Cleveland Guardians were indicted and accused of rigging pitches at the behest of gamblers. MLB said Monday the limits were agreed to by sportsbook operators representing more than 98% of the U.S. betting market. The league said in a statement that pitch-level bets on outcomes of pitch velocity and of balls and strikes "present heightened integrity risks because they focus on one-off events that can be determined by a single player and can be inconsequential to the outcome of the game."
Turkish prosecutors have charged Istanbul's jailed mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu with 142 offences that could carry a penalty of hundreds of years in prison if he is convicted, court documents show. The nearly 4,000-page indictment charges the popular opposition figure, who was arrested on 19 March, with offences including running a criminal organisation, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, extortion and tender rigging.
Former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted on charges related to a gambling scheme, the latest in a string of betting scandals that have rocked sports. Two and a half weeks after indicting an NBA player and two coaches for their alleged roles in gambling schemes, the United States Attorney's Office out of the Eastern District of New York accused Clase and Ortiz of rigging individual pitches to benefit unnamed bettors.
The first incident occurred in July 1995, when authorities said Benjamin broke into a sleeping woman's home and "pulled a sheet over her head." Benjamin tied the woman up, raped her and stole cash and jewelry from her home, then fled, according to the district attorney's office. More than a year later, he similarly broke into another woman's home while she was asleep, prosecutors said.
Haney said by phone Thursday he took an interest in Rinderknecht's case because there were things I knew about this case factually and things that didn't make sense to me. It's a very strange case, he added. Haney said prosecutors were using Rinderknecht as a scapegoat and said the attempt to hold him criminally liable for the failure of others is preposterous. There were blatant failures by governmental agencies that were intervening causes between the Lachman and Palisades fires, he said.
