Justin Rohrlich

Plague has been found in animals and fleas in six Colorado counties after a 10-year-old girl died in early July from the rare bacterial infection, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced. The unnamed fourth-grader who became infected was a member of the 4-H Weaselskin Club, and had been raising hogs as part of the program. The case marked the state’s first plague death since 2015, and the second confirmed incidence of plague in Colorado this year. Plague activity has so far been identified in the counties of San Miguel, El Paso, Boulder, Huerfano, Adams, and La Plata, where […]

A Texas child seen last year in a viral video alleging sexual abuse has vanished—and authorities believe the disappearance is part of a deranged plot by the girl’s father. Ten-year-old Sophie Long was last seen on July 12 in Seguin, Texas, and is “believed to be with her non-custodial parent, Michael Long,” the Texas Department of Public Safety announced in a statement, adding that the two “may be en route” to Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Mexico, or Argentina. “Michael Long is possibly driving an off white 2010 Ford Edge SUV or a gray van with blacked out windows, a [sic] NRA sticker […]

A U.S. Army washout who identified as a so-called involuntary celibate plotted to “slaughter” women in a mass shooting at an unnamed Ohio university, with an ultimate goal of killing some 3,000 people in all after receiving his military training, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court. Tres Genco, 21, was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of attempting to commit a hate crime and one count of illegally possessing a machine gun, prosecutors announced. He described himself as an “incel,” which court filings describe as someone who advocates “violence in support of their belief that women unjustly deny […]

A special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration brought his service weapon and badge to the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, defiantly displaying them for multiple photos taken in restricted areas on the Capitol grounds after police barricades were overrun, a newly-unsealed court filing reveals. Mark Sami Ibrahim, who worked out of a DEA office in the Los Angeles area, traveled from California to Washington, D.C., to take part in the pro-Trump insurrection that left five people dead, the filing states. A friend of Ibrahim’s told investigators that the probationary agent “had been thinking about his next move” because he was planning […]

The Bootleg Fire in Oregon, which erupted in early July and is still only 25 percent contained, has now charred an area the size of Los Angeles, destroying at least 67 homes and 100 buildings. Smoke and heat from the out-of-control blaze have created “fire clouds” that can be seen from more than 100 miles away. One of the clouds threw embers onto fire crews working below, leading to an emergency evacuation of personnel off the fire line. Numerous “slop fires” have jumped fire lines, with one growing to about four miles in size as of Monday afternoon. “We are running […]

After six-and-a-half hours of deliberations, a Colorado jury on Friday found Mark Redwine guilty of second-degree murder for killing his 13-year-old son Dylan in a fit of rage after the boy found photos of Redwine wearing a red bra and eating feces from a diaper. Redwine appeared next to his lawyers in court Friday wearing a black shirt and a gray tie, but no jacket. He awaited the verdict with his hands folded, and showed no emotion as it was read out. His lawyers, John Moran and Justin Bogan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Redwine’s […]

A man scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without parole for killing college student Mollie Tibbetts got a last-minute reprieve on Wednesday in light of bombshell new information pointing to other potential suspects. In May, a jury convicted Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 27, an Iowa dairy farm worker, of first-degree murder in the 2018 death of Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student at the University of Iowa. Today, Judge Joel Yates ordered Bahena Rivera’s sentencing to be delayed after two witnesses independently approached authorities with stories that called into question his level of involvement in the crime. “We are glad […]

On March 17, 2021, a confidential source contacted a detective in the Bremerton, Washington Police Department with a tip. The source said they had been on a “compound” with several other people a month or two earlier, and that three of the people had “solicited the source to lure a male who they intended to capture, kill, and dispose of the body,” according to court filings. The source told investigators that the target of the plot was a “tall, skinny Black male in his twenties who may go by ‘Dre.’” Apparently, a drug deal had gone bad at some point earlier, […]

An Obama-era Pentagon official who was at one point under consideration to be President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense called for “internal regime change” in Iran at an event held by a shadowy group designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government until 2012. But she claims she didn’t know anything about the group’s notorious past when she agreed to appear. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, who heads up a consulting firm upon which the Biden administration has drawn heavily to fill top White House positions, appeared virtually on Sunday at the “Free Iran World Summit 2021.” […]

Republican lawmakers were forced to admit they have not seen any evidence of widespread election fraud during a Saturday showdown in the Texas State House over restrictive “election integrity” measures being taken up in a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott. The move was decried by Democrats as little more than an attempt to suppress minority votes. Experts say that unnecessary election security measures like the ones being proposed in Texas actually do nothing to make elections more secure and disproportionately disenfranchise people of color. Large numbers of opponents showed up on Saturday to officially register their objection to the […]

A man charged with killing three men found dead on an Atlanta golf course over the July 4 weekend was previously arrested for getting into a shootout at Georgia State University over a drug deal gone wrong. Five years before Bryan Anthony Rhoden was accused of killing 76-year-old Paul Pierson, 46-year-old Henry Valdez, and 46-year-old golf pro Gene Siller, he allegedly shot 19-year-old Shelton Torance Flournoy three times in the chest during an argument over a drug deal in the parking lot of a Georgia State dorm. Rhoden, who was attending Georgia State at the time, was hit once in the […]

An innocent man who was killed when a Minneapolis Police Department squad car slammed into his vehicle was the uncle of Darnella Frazier, the teenage bystander who recorded the 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white cop. Leneal Lamont Frazier, 62, died when his SUV was struck around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning by a police cruiser. The officer was reportedly chasing another driver—who has not been publicly identified—wanted for carjacking and multiple robberies, and Frazier was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I honestly can’t believe I’m making this post right now…I’m so hurt…nothing […]

A former cop accused of taking part in the Capitol riot was granted a pre-trial release in the weeks after his arrest, on the condition that he not own any guns. But in the months since, he has secretly bought at least 34 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition—including armor-penetrating rounds—and tried to disguise some of the payments as being for “wedding photos,” according to an FBI search warrant affidavit filed Friday. Now prosecutors are asking a judge to revoke Thomas Robertson’s bail, and arrest him for violating his pretrial release conditions for the second time in six months. Robertson, […]

If you’ve been watching the latest season of BBQ Brawl—Food Network’s cooking competition starring celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Michael Symon—you may have spotted a barbecue pitmaster from Texas named Brendan Lamb. What you might have missed, however, is the Three Percenter tattoo inked prominently on the back of Lamb’s left arm. The Three Percenters are a U.S.-based far-right, anti-government militia movement that the government of Canada last week designated a terrorist entity. That list also includes, among others, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and an ISIS offshoot based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lamb, 32, said he got […]

John McAfee, the 90s software magnate who devolved into a globe-trotting fugitive accused of violent crimes, was found dead Wednesday afternoon in a Spanish prison cell just hours after the Spanish High Court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges. McAfee was 75. “Confirmation has come from our legal team in Spain that John was found dead in his jail cell,” McAfee’s lawyer, Nishay K. Sanan, told The Daily Beast. “I am saddened to hear of the events and my prayers go out to his wife Janice. John was and will always be remembered as a fighter. […]

A 44-year-old math teacher and track coach who describes himself as a “follower of Christ” posed as a teenage boy and coerced at least two underage girls to “produce pornographic images of themselves,” according to federal prosecutors. When the girls resisted his follow-up demands, the teacher, identified in court filings as Chad Alan Craghead of Fulton, Missouri, allegedly threatened to send the compromising photos to the teens’ friends and family members. Craghead was arrested by federal agents on June 16, and now faces five felony charges: two counts of production of child pornography, one count of cyberstalking, and two counts of […]

Cold case investigators in Washington State used a genealogy database to identify a suspect wanted for a 2003 kidnapping and rape, and now believe the man could be connected to an unsolved kidnapping and murder that has vexed authorities for more than a decade. Paul James Bieker, 50, was arrested Tuesday for the 2003 attack, Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Brad Johansson said, adding that detectives are now probing whether Bieker might also be responsible for the 2009 disappearance and killing of 10-year-old Lindsey Baum. “We obviously have our eyebrows raised because of the similarities,” Johansson told The Daily Beast. “We’re a […]

A knock-down, drag-out battle royale between more than a dozen parents and coaches at a kids’ Little League game could result in criminal charges against some of those involved, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Video of the brawl in Stanton, Kentucky posted to Facebook showed at least 12 adults involved, many of them shouting obscenities. Children on the teams, ranging from 5- to 7-years-old, were said to be left in tears after the violent melee derailed a planned trophy and medal ceremony. “Its [sic] really sad these kids that played hard all season and put their hearts on that field didnt get […]

Three days after a South Carolina mother and son from a powerful legal family were shot dead outside a house on their 1,700-acre hunting estate, countless questions remain about the pair’s violent demise. Around 10 p.m. on Monday, deputies with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 report of two dead bodies outside a rural home. There, officers found the remains of Paul Murdaugh, 22, and his mother Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52. According to local news outlet the Island Packet, the two were shot with different weapons: one with an assault rifle, the other with a shotgun. Attorney Richard […]

A scorned lawyer allegedly stalked her lover across multiple states following a dispute over an apparently non-existent pregnancy, publicly accusing the man of heinous crimes he hadn’t committed and making his life so miserable he put a gun to his head because he felt “no more hope.” That’s according to an FBI search warrant affidavit obtained by The Daily Beast, which accuses 48-year-old Alia Saaed, a Nashville attorney, of embarking on a five-year crusade to ruin her erstwhile boyfriend—a man identified in court records only as “R.J.” On June 9, the FBI raided Saaed’s two-bedroom Nashville home and arrested her on […]

A 14-year-old girl who was stabbed 25 times in a random attack while skateboarding to her mother’s house in Fargo, North Dakota, has died from her injuries, her family said. “We just got word from the Doctor today that Our baby girl is too far gone and there isn’t anything they can do,” Daisy “Jupiter” Paulsen’s father, Robert, wrote on a GoFundMe page set up in the aftermath of the brutal attack to help with medical bills. “Just to gather family and to say our goodbyes… This is a very dark moment in our lives. Thank you all for the prayers, […]

One year to the day after her two children’s remains were found buried in shallow graves, a court has ordered Idaho doomsday mom Lori Vallow Daybell to be committed to a mental health facility for 90 days, where psychiatrists will attempt to restore her competency to stand trial, according to court records. The move comes as Daybell’s fifth husband and co-defendant Chad Daybell, who is also accused of killing his first wife, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to multiple murder and conspiracy charges. Daybell faces life in prison or a death sentence if convicted on the most serious counts. His trial […]

The law enforcement response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot might best be summed up in one sentence tucked away 66 pages into the 128-page of a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday: “An officer reported hearing a Lieutenant repeatedly ask over the radio, ‘Does anybody have a plan?’” The report by the Senate Rules and Homeland Security Committees, titled Examining the U.S. Capitol Attack: A Review of the Security, Planning, and Response Failures on January 6, outlines the myriad ways officials and frontline officers were caught flat-footed by pro-Trump rioters trying to stop now-President Joe Biden’s electoral win from being certified. […]

Nearly three years after Lynn Hernan was found dead in her Pewaukee, Wisconsin, condo, a family friend who had been caring for her has been arrested on murder charges. The twist? Authorities allege Jessy Rose Kurczewski, 37, poisoned Hernan with eyedrops after stealing nearly $300,000 from the 64-year-old, then tried to convince investigators that Hernan had in fact died by suicide by overdosing on drugs. In reality, cops say, Kurczewski was a down-on-her-luck gambling addict with a history of fraud who duped Hernan out of thousands before getting herself named the sole heir to Hernan’s estate. It all began on the […]

An Idaho prosecutor has decided not to contest a court’s finding that doomsday mom Lori Vallow isn’t competent to stand trial for the murder of two of her children in her current mental state. The about-face by Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood means that Vallow will undergo treatment until the court finds she is fit to stand trial—while the case against her fifth husband and co-defendant Chad Daybell, who is also charged with killing his first wife, proceeds. Vallow—an end-times prepper who reportedly believed 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan were possessed by demons—will now undergo psychological counseling during […]

The Alabama man accused of killing his 5-week-old son last month, blurted out an apology to the child’s mother after leading investigators to a shallow grave where Caleb “C.J.” Whisnand Jr.’s remains were buried, a law enforcement official testified in court Friday. Caleb Michael Whisnand Sr., 32, drove detectives to the body following a bizarre May 12 press conference during which he and Angela Gardner, the child’s 28-year-old mother, pleaded for the public’s help in finding C.J. When they arrived on the scene, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Investigator John Shepherd testified at a preliminary hearing that Whisnand ran over and hugged Gardner, […]

A federal construction contractor that worked for several U.S. agencies bribed a State Department worker to commit “corporate espionage” and steer contracts worth more than $100 million to his company in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in cash, federal investigators allege in a newly-unsealed search warrant affidavit. Iranian-born May Salehi, who was assigned to the State Department’s division of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), had a security clearance and a mountain of debt, according to the document. To get out of her financial hole, special agents working for the State Department’s Inspector General believe Salehi, 65, illegally helped steer what […]

After pushing a slew of baseless conspiracy theories casting doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, former New York City Mayor and Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is accusing Democratic lawmakers of doing just that. Giuliani makes the claim, among others, in a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit brought in February by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and the NAACP. The suit, which Thompson filed in his personal capacity, accuses Giuliani of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by, among other things, calling for “trial by combat” in a speech […]

With less than a month to go before New York’s primary election, presidential also-ran turned mayoral candidate Andrew Yang is in a war with one of the city’s major newspapers. On Monday, the New York Daily News posted a cartoon portraying him as a tourist after he said Times Square was his favorite subway station. He and his wife called the paper racist. And then the tabloid hit back by mocking him in another story and getting the local head of the NAACP to say Yang shouldn’t be throwing around the term racism. “A mayoral candidate who failed to vote in […]

Gunfire rang out Tuesday morning at George Floyd Square, the Minneapolis intersection where police officer Derek Chauvin, now a convicted murderer, killed George Floyd one year ago today. It remains unclear why the shooting erupted, but a Minneapolis Police spokesperson confirmed there were shots fired near the square shortly after 10 a.m. One victim was transported to the hospital with a gunshot wound, police said. Tuesday’s schedule at the square, which has been decorated with portraits of various civil rights leaders, will include a “Rise and Remember” memorial event beginning at 1 p.m. A candlelight vigil is scheduled to begin at […]

The family feud over the kidnapping and killing of 4-year-old Cash Gernon has gotten so acrimonious that his parents are now fighting over the funeral. The boy’s father, Trevor Gernon, who left Cash and his twin Carter with a friend for weeks before the slaying, wants to pay his respects before he turns himself in to police on outstanding drug charges, his sister told The Daily Beast. “My brother wants to just say goodbye to his son and put him to rest, and this has just been really difficult to figure out,” Ashlee Marcoux said in a phone interview. But, Marcoux […]

The mother of two children found dead in their father’s Nebraska home spent Wednesday making funeral arrangements—picking out the perfect urns for their cremains. “Emily used to wear her ‘cowgirl boots’ everywhere,” Mary Nielsen said of her 5-year-old daughter. “If I called them ‘cowboy boots,’ she would correct me and say, ‘No mom, they’re cowgirl boots.’ So we found a cowgirl boot urn for her. “We picked one out for Teddy that had a space in front where we could put a picture of Batman in it,” Nielsen said of her 3-year-old son. In a Facebook live video on Tuesday night, […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday issued new guidelines that marked the beginning of the end of indoor mask use and social distancing for vaccinated people in America. Those who are two weeks past their final COVID-19 shot can now skip masks when inside virtually anywhere, and also drop their masks outdoors in large crowds, a context in which the CDC continued to recommend mask use as of two weeks ago. But while experts canvassed by The Daily Beast broadly agreed with easing federal guidance, they warned the blanket nationwide approach failed to account for America’s vast […]

School officials in Piedmont, California, are in full damage-control mode after their plans for a “support circle for white students” in the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict sparked major backlash. A day after the white former Minneapolis police officer was found guilty last month of murdering George Floyd, who was Black, the assistant superintendent of the Piedmont Unified School District reached out to students and staff offering the chance to engage in dialogue about the nation-changing trial. But there was one problem: The “restorative community circles” on offer were all segregated, and the white students, bizarrely, were seemingly treated as […]

A Washington State man is facing federal charges for allegedly organizing a largely unmasked, non-socially-distanced, 153-person hike across the Grand Canyon that not only violated COVID-19 restrictions but normal group size limits, too. Joseph Don Mount, who until recently was the chief operating officer at a Chehalis, Washington medical clinic, is also accused of lying to National Park Service officials about his plans, which included having two buses and three vans transport attendees to and from the October 2020 event, according to a criminal complaint made public on May 5 in Arizona federal court. An administrator at the Steck Clinic confirmed […]

A California mom and Instagram influencer who went viral last December after accusing a Latino couple of attempting to kidnap her kids in a Petaluma crafts store has been charged with giving false information to police, according to county prosecutors. Katie Sorensen, of Sonoma County, is facing two misdemeanor counts for allegedly lying to cops about the incident. The outlandish accusation against longtime locals Eduardo and Sadie Martinez, who have five kids of their own, was an obvious case of racial profiling, the two said at the time. “Great news for us all but mostly for my cousin, Sadie Vega-Martinez and […]

The father of the Ohio teen arrested Friday with an AK-47-style assault rifle in the Times Square subway station was killed in a shootout with cops last month after fleeing in his car the wrong way down a busy interstate, police sources told the New York Post and NBC News. Details about the father of Saadiq Teague have come out as questions swirl about what the 18-year-old was doing in New York City and why he was carrying a weapon. Police have so far released scant details about the young man’s plans or his possible motivation, pending further investigation. At the […]

A Michigan man with Down syndrome—whose futile quest to get the COVID-19 vaccine was chronicled by The Daily Beast—has died from complications related to the virus his family said. Vincent Welch, 35, passed away Friday morning at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was recently airlifted for treatment by pulmonary specialists. Welch lived in Snover, Michigan, which is near the top of the state’s geographical “thumb.” It’s also a key COVID hotspot nationally, as Michigan sees an alarming rise in cases. The state leads the nation in new cases, with more than 6,000 recorded just on Thursday and […]

A Minnesota city was gripped by protests for a second night in a row as officials released the name of the white cop who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop—apparently after she mistook her handgun for a taser. Officer Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, was identified as the person who fired a bullet into 20-year-old Daunte Wright’s chest. Demonstrators flouted a curfew Monday to take to the streets and demand Potter be fired and charged. She has been placed on “standard administrative leave,” according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Wright’s […]

A Florida woman who police say was so high on mind-bending drugs that she was screaming she was Harry Potter has been charged with the hit-and-run accident that killed a federal judge. U.S.District Judge Sandra Feuerstein, 75, was mowed down as she strolled down a Boca Raton sidewalk on Friday morning and was pronounced dead at the hospital. A 6-year-old boy, Anthony Ovchinnikov, was injured in the crash, but survived. Feuerstein was appointed to the federal bench in 2003 by former President George W. Bush, and worked out of the Eastern District of New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, […]

Federal wiretaps targeting cell phones used by Southern California white power gangs allegedly trafficking methamphetamine also turned up a surprise identity theft racket being run by an alleged member of the notorious Lakeside Gangsters, a “multi-generational criminal street gang” with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood and Supreme Power Skins, according to an FBI search warrant application obtained by The Daily Beast. The investigation began as part of “Operation Shamrock Shake,” a joint investigation led by the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force-Gang Group targeting the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang, and its “subordinate white power street gangs,” the Supreme Power Skins, the […]

Two people were shot dead by an off-duty Pentagon Force Protection Agency police officer who thought he saw the pair stealing a car early Wednesday morning, police in Maryland said in a statement. Shortly after 5 a.m., officers from the Takoma Park Police Department responded to multiple reports of shots fired in the parking lot of the Takoma Overlook Condominiums on New Hampshire Avenue, the department said. When they got there, the off-duty Pentagon officer approached them and said he’d seen “what he thought was a car being broken into.” “He engaged the suspects who failed to follow his direction,” the […]

Even though New York has one of the strictest mask mandates in the country, and one-third of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, COVID-19 infection rates are rising faster than any other state in the U.S.—and public health experts aren’t completely sure what’s behind the spike in new cases. “The reality is that no one knows exactly why,” Dr. Irwin Redlener, a New York epidemiologist specializing in pandemic response, told The Daily Beast. “There are a lot of factors in New York that have to do with population density, lots of people who are in marginalized […]

A Black man shot and killed by Virginia Beach police on Friday was “brandishing a handgun” at the time of his death, the Virginia Beach Police Department said Monday. The statement comes two days after cops said they were unsure whether 25-year-old Donovon Lynch was armed during the fatal confrontation. The officer involved in the shooting had been wearing a body camera but had not activated it “for unknown reasons,” according to VBPD Chief Paul Neudigate. “I don’t have a whole lot of answers,” Neudigate told reporters at a press conference after the shooting. But the department now says Lynch was […]

An AR-15-owning QAnon acolyte caught with armor-piercing bullets drove from Wisconsin to Washington, D.C. on March 3 and threatened U.S. Capitol Police officers that he was “maybe going to do something crazy stupid tomorrow”—the day followers of the discredited conspiracy theory falsely believed former President Donald Trump would reassume the presidency, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Mar. 19 in federal court. Ian Alan Olson, who made the 800-mile trip in a 2016 Subaru festooned with QAnon slogans, told a soldier on duty outside the Capitol that he was going to “test the National Guard tomorrow to see if they were […]

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer is under federal investigation for allegedly smuggling methamphetamine and suboxone into a Washington State prison for her boyfriend, a member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips street gang who is serving 69 years for shooting and killing a homeless man at a Seattle bus shelter, according to an FBI search warrant application obtained by The Daily Beast. Officer Melissa Mesa, who has yet to be charged with a crime, is accused of sneaking the illicit substances into Washington State’s Clallam Bay Corrections Center at the request of her alleged love interest, Say Keodara. The two […]

A U.S. Census branch chief got a job for a friend at a company doing business with the federal government, then demanded he fork over half his earnings as tribute and got him fired when the acquaintance tried to negotiate a lower kickback, prosecutors allege. In November 2018, an unemployed acquaintance contacted Joy Saif Choudhury, a branch chief for the Census Bureau, to ask for help getting a job, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Maryland federal court. Choudhury, an information technology specialist earning more than $123,000 a year who won a departmental award for organizational management last year, […]

Joe Biden on Thursday suggested it might be safe to gather in small groups come July 4, 2021, as vaccinations ramp up and the pandemic shows signs of easing. But from where Francisco Bruna is sitting, plenty of Americans have no intention of waiting even close to that long. “We’re receiving a lot of calls,” Bruna, owner of Bru Med Travel, a Miami travel agency, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “People are starting to make travel arrangements, not only in the States but in the Caribbean and overseas as well. Some countries have opened up, like Turkey, Dubai, the Bahamas, […]

An undocumented Dutch “Boogaloo Boi” arrested by the FBI on weapons and immigration charges is a good dad who just wants to be home in Virginia with his 6-year-old daughter, according to his lawyer. Meanwhile, he is comfortably riding out his time in federal detention with financial support from fellow members of the Boogaloo movement, a largely decentralized extremist movement that aims to overthrow the U.S. government by inciting a second civil war. In a decision handed down on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Pamela Meade Sargent ordered Jaap Willem Lijbers, who pleaded not guilty, held without bail until his next court appearance […]

After a deluge of new reporting this weekend portrayed a culture of sexual harassment and bullying in his office, embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday embraced his defense of choice: tradition. “If customs change, I’ll change—the customs and behaviors,” Cuomo said during a Sunday afternoon conference call with reporters, in response to an article published Saturday by The Wall Street Journal. In it, former staffer Ana Liss said Cuomo asked if she had a boyfriend, hugged her, kissed her on both cheeks, and grabbed her waist for a photo. “Did I take a picture with Ms. Liss? Yes, I […]

Days before the trial of the officer charged with murdering George Floyd is set to begin in Minneapolis, the FBI has arrested a member of the Boogaloo Bois who tried to travel to the city during this summer’s unrest and who has been in contact with a fellow extremist accused of attacking a police station there. Jaap Willem Lijbers, 26, is an undocumented Dutch citizen living in Virginia who investigators have tied to the white nationalist movement that wants to overthrow the U.S. government by inciting a second civil war. He was arrested during a raid on his home in rural […]

An Ohio mother who police say tried to abandon her 6-year-old son at a local park, dragged him along the pavement when he tried to get back into the car, then dumped the boy’s lifeless body in a river the following day, confessed to killing the child but has shown little remorse, the Middletown police chief revealed Monday. Brittany Gosney, 29, is charged with murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence. Cops say Gosney’s two other children—both of whom are second-graders—were in the car at the time of the killing, but were not harmed. They have since been placed […]

A Russian hacker stole the identities of 22 of 75 living U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, using their pilfered personal data to buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of Apple products and luxury watches from American military exchanges, according to a Secret Service search warrant application obtained by The Daily Beast. The hot merchandise was then shipped to at least 20 different addresses in the United States, using unwitting dupes—hired through seemingly benign online ads—who then forwarded the packages to a Moscow suburb that is home to a training academy for a Russian spy agency. In all, the scammer […]

Chantal Reh never got to know her daughter Christie, who had been diagnosed in the womb with Turner’s Syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder, and was stillborn. Nearly three years later, Reh still doesn’t know if Christie’s ashes, which she keeps at home in a small urn, are actually Christie’s. Shortly after she delivered her baby at a Colorado hospital in August 2018, Reh says she was given a list of funeral homes in the area that would cremate such a small body. The only ones willing to provide the service were owned by a local couple, Shannon and Staci Kent. There […]

Leo Brent Bozell IV, a son of right-wing activist L. Brent Bozell III, has been charged in federal court for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Bozell IV faces three counts—disorderly conduct, entering a restricted building, and obstructing an official proceeding—according to a complaint unsealed Feb. 16. Bozell’s father is the founder of the conservative Media Research Center, a self-described watchdog group that aims to “expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media.” His Parents Television Council campaigns to bring “responsibility and decency to the entertainment industry in answer to America’s demand for […]

Millions of Texans are still without power, as a record cold snap continues to tax the statewide electric grid beyond its limit—but don’t blame it all on wind turbines. Contrary to some media reports, experts say wind turbines are only a “tiny” piece of what’s gone wrong, which includes foul-ups in everything from natural gas and nuclear energy in addition to structural issues affecting the uniquely independent system Texas uses to deliver energy to its population. On Sunday, 10.1 inches of snow fell on San Angelo, Texas, eclipsing the record 2.5 inches the city got in 1951. The border city of […]

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employee offered to commit “treason and espionage” in exchange for $27.7 million and a promise of asylum in Germany, France, or China, according to a plea agreement filed Feb. 10 in Washington, D.C. federal court. In a statement of offense attached to the plea, Brian J. Booth, who was assigned to the FAA’s Enforcement Division, admitted to disclosing U.S. secrets last year when he sent letters to the German, French, and Chinese embassies containing the names of pilots and mechanics who had been stripped of their operating certificates after being deemed security threats by the agency. […]

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer allegedly used a colleague’s computer login to sneak her undocumented housekeeper into Texas from Mexico after circumventing COVID-19 non-essential travel restrictions by scheduling an appointment for the woman to donate plasma at a clinic just over the U.S. border. The officer, identified in a federal criminal complaint as Rhonda Lee Walker, is stationed in Laredo, TX. The woman Walker allegedly employed, identified in the complaint as Mexican citizen Yadira Yesenia Trevino-SanMiguel, does not have permission to work or reside in the U.S., the complaint says. Criminal misconduct by U.S. border officers recently reached a […]

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem used a state airplane to shuttle her around the country to right-wing political events, racking up huge bills on the taxpayer dime as the GOP darling traveled to events hosted by, among others, the National Rifle Association, Turning Point USA, and a Las Vegas confab put on by the Republican Jewish Coalition. That’s according to flight records reviewed by Raw Story, which also reports Noem unnecessarily blew thousands on air travel by having the state airplane fetch her at her family home in Castlewood, SD, rather than at the official governor’s residence in Pierre, where the […]

A Pennsylvania mother of eight on the run from authorities for her role in the Capitol riot has been arrested by the FBI, according to federal prosecutors. Rachel Marie Powell of Sandy Lake, PA, “is in custody,” Margaret Philbin, a spokesperson for the Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney’s Office, told The Daily Beast. Powell, 40, was apprehended Thursday night in New Castle, PA, according to Philbin. She could not immediately be reached for comment, and does not yet have a lawyer listed in court records. The cheese and yogurt purveyor—dubbed “the bullhorn lady” after video emerged of Powell appearing to shout orders through […]

A private detective scammed hundreds of investors in a cryptocurrency fraud, then faked his own disappearance to make off with millions that he blew on jewelry, home improvements, and a Porsche, a newly unsealed criminal complaint alleges. John DeMarr was arrested Monday morning by the FBI in Santa Ana, California. Federal authorities say that he and two associates pocketed more than $11 million in ill-gotten gains. According to the complaint, DeMarr convinced retail investors to buy into “Bitcoiin,” a now-defunct cryptocurrency also known as “Bitcoiin2Gen” or “B2G.” The bizarre case involves C-list actor and martial artist Steven Seagal, who briefly served […]

The Wisconsin pharmacist who intentionally sabotaged hundreds of doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine because he thought COVID-19 was a hoax, also believes the earth is flat and the sky is actually a “shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God.” That’s according to a newly-unsealed FBI search warrant application obtained by The Daily Beast, which the bureau filed earlier this month requesting permission to analyze an iPhone, a laptop, and a thumb drive seized from Steven Brandenburg when he was arrested in late December. Federal authorities accused Brandenburg, 46, of purposely destroying 570 doses of the […]

A Virginia police officer charged in the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol bragged to a friend on Facebook that he “pissed in Nancy P’s toilet,” referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to an FBI search warrant application obtained by The Daily Beast. The document, which seeks permission to search Jacob Fracker’s Rocky Mount, Virginia, home for further evidence, follows a prior warrant that gave the FBI permission to scour his Facebook account. Agents say they found photos, videos, and messages to others sent the day after the riot that directly incriminate Fracker, who is also a corporal […]

A fresh cohort of pro-Trump rioters involved in the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol have been arrested, many of whom were largely undone by their own ill-advised social-media posts, according to a series of newly filed criminal complaints. Some uploaded selfies to Facebook that placed them at the scene, along with vivid descriptions of breaking into and being inside of the Capitol building during the attempted insurrection. Others implicated themselves online, then sealed the deal with the active tracking apps they had had open on their phones, which the FBI subsequently used to recreate their precise whereabouts that day. […]

A U.S. Army reservist with a secret-level security clearance and “access to a variety of munitions”—described in court papers as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer—has been charged with taking part in the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli of Colts Neck, New Jersey, works as a contractor at Naval Weapons Station Earle, which is also in Colts Neck, according to an FBI affidavit filed last week. He now faces five federal counts: knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority; disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; disrupting the orderly conduct of government business; parading, demonstrating or […]

As rioters roamed about the Senate floor on January 6, a clutch of fellow insurrectionists stood at a lawmaker’s desk, rifling through a binder filled with official documents. A man wearing a backpack and an olive-green military style helmet points to a section and tells the group he believes it shows proof that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had been baldly lying to Trump supporters about his intentions. “Look—‘Objection to counting the electoral votes of the State of Arizona,’” the man says, adding, “He was gonna sell us out all along.” “Wait no, that’s a good thing! That’s a good thing!” a […]

A U.S. embassy staffer accused of drugging and sexually assaulting at least 23 women over the past 10 years lured at least one of his victims across international borders to Mexico from the United States for a night of abuse she barely remembers, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed in federal court. That’s among the new revelations in the case of Brian Jeffrey Raymond, a government employee stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City who allegedly carried out a decade-long rape spree while on the federal payroll. Initially charged with a single count of coercion and enticement, Raymond now faces […]

Isaiah Box was in the wrong place at the right time. The 25-year-old lives in Rockford, Illinois, sharing a home with his parents about a half mile from the Don Carter Lanes, where he was a regular at the upstairs tavern, Shooter’s Bar and Grill. He was there as usual this past Saturday, but left earlier than he normally does. This, he now realizes, may have saved his life. “I don’t know what made me leave—especially on a Saturday, I typically stay up there to watch football,” Box told The Daily Beast. “I happened to leave around 4:45, 5 o’clock, and […]

In a move that surprised precious few, President Donald Trump issued another flurry of pardons on Wednesday night, including a full pardon for his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, and Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman who was found guilty of tax and bank fraud and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice after lying to investigators looking into Russian election interference. Kushner, 66, was released from prison in 2006 after serving two years for a conviction of tax evasion and witness tampering. Manafort is the latest member of Trump’s inner circle to be pardoned by the outgoing president, who has […]

A so-called incel who fantasized about blowing up a shopping mall and killing “hot cheerleaders” pleaded guilty Friday to one count of possessing an unregistered destructive device. Cole Carini of Richlands, Virginia, reportedly idolized mass shooter Elliott Rodger, an “involuntary celibate,” or “incel,” who in 2014 murdered six people in California and injured 14 others before taking his own life. Many legal scholars say incel-related violence, which has been linked to at least 53 deaths in recent years, is a form of domestic terrorism. The “incel movement” is comprised of young men who feel angry at women for rejecting them. The […]

After a near-fatal heroin overdose, two stints in rehab, and six months in jail, Chandler Cook finally got sober and stayed clean for more than a year. Then came the coronavirus—and the 28-year-old lost his job, and lost his way. His mom, Michelle Holbrook, called every day but couldn’t visit because of her own health issues. But Chandler was isolated, bored, and physically cut off from the support networks he had built to stop him from relapsing. On April 21, Michele, who lives about 45 minutes north of Jacksonville, Florida, got a phone call from one of Chandler’s closest friends. “He […]

The Department of Justice is investigating a possible “secret lobbying scheme” to secure a presidential pardon, according to a partially unsealed filing in D.C. federal court. The 20-page document is largely redacted, leaving it a mystery who investigators believe was hoping to receive the pardon or reprieve in exchange for “a substantial political contribution.” No names or identifying information is provided, and the investigation appears to be ongoing. The evidence of a potential bribery scheme was discovered after authorities raided an unidentified lawyer’s office over the summer and seized 50 electronic devices including iPhones, iPads, laptops, and thumb drives, according to […]

An Iowa paralegal working for the Department of Justice admitted to illegally revealing the identities of at least two cooperating witnesses in a federal drug trafficking investigation, providing the highly-sensitive information to someone who subsequently posted the informants’ names, addresses, and phone numbers to a “stop snitching” Facebook page with nearly 10,000 members. Danielle N. Taff, 37, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of computer fraud. She was a contractor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa between June 2017 and June 2018. Taff is from Ankeny and, according to a Facebook page that appears to belong […]

After Brandy Odom’s remains were discovered scattered throughout Brooklyn’s Canarsie Park in April 2018, her roommates, Cory Martin and Adelle Anderson, quickly came under suspicion. Now, nearly two-and-a-half years after the gruesome crime, Martin, 33, and Anderson, 32, are facing federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges in connection with Odom’s murder. The arrests follow Anderson’s confession during an interview with law enforcement last week that Martin killed Odom by strangling her, after which Anderson helped him dispose of the body. The case made headlines throughout New York, and Odom’s funeral drew hundreds of mourners. According to prosecutors, Martin and […]

Former Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Garrison Courtney was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison for a breath-taking scam that netted him millions—and could have landed him billions in federal contracts, had he not been caught in time. The punishment was longer than the 37 months the defense sought but less than the 11 to 14 years prosecutors—who described Courtney as someone with an “extraordinary capacity to deceive and manipulate others”—had asked for. Courtney’s lawyer told The Daily Beast that his client was a “sincerely remorseful human being who took responsibility for his conduct.” “While there are many explanations for what […]

Ken Kurson, a close friend of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and a one-time speechwriter for Donald Trump, was arrested by FBI agents Friday on cyberstalking charges. Federal prosecutors allege Kurson, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former editor-in-chief of The New York Observer when Kushner was its publisher, “engaged in a pattern of stalking and harassment against three victims” who include a former friend he blamed for ruining his marriage. The alleged harassment reportedly occurred during Kurson’s tenure at the Observer. According to a complaint unsealed today in Brooklyn federal court, Kurson’s alleged crimes came to light in 2018 while undergoing an FBI […]

A California widow was scammed out of at least $287,000 by an unidentified overseas con man who romanced her online using “deepfake” video to pose as the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, according to federal prosecutors. Deepfakes, which are created using artificial intelligence to make it appear as if someone is doing or saying something they aren’t, have been called a threat to national security. Researchers have long feared the technology could potentially distort democracy, making it impossible for people to distinguish between fact and fiction. But this is the first time they have seen a deepfake used specifically to […]