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. […]
Justin Rohrlich
19 posts
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
When he was released from a Soviet prison in 1990, Yevgeny Prigozhin went to work as a hot dog salesman. Soon, the budding entrepreneur—who had just served nine years for robbery and fraud—began moving up in the world of gastronomy. He became the manager of a chain of grocery stores in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, and eventually expanded into the restaurant business. In […]
First lady Melania Trump today escalated her war against former friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, issuing a scathing personal attack dressed up as a White House press release on child bullying. The public missive comes just three days after the Department of Justice sued Wolkoff on behalf of the president’s wife, claiming she violated a nondisclosure agreement by publishing a tell-all book, Melania and Me: […]
From behind the safety of a transparent shield, South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison on Saturday took Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose seat Harrison hopes to turn blue in November, to task for not being a man of his word. “Listening to Senator Graham…reminds me of playing Monopoly with my son,” Harrison said during his first of three debates in the South Carolina Senate race against the incumbent […]
A Texas drifter threatened to kill “every black person at the Social Security office” if he didn’t get his benefits, according to a guilty plea filed in federal court this week. It all began in January 2019, when Dewitt Chandler, 40, contacted a Social Security Administration call center to ask why he hadn’t received his check. During the conversation, an apparently dissastified Chandler told the rep […]
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. But, after finding out he had the virus, which has killed more than 220,000 Americans to date, the Wisconsin Republican still chose to attend an Oktoberfest fundraising dinner that evening. Johnson, who didn’t reveal his diagnosis until Saturday, justified his behavior in comments to the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times by saying he only took his mask […]
A federal corrections officer caught a visitor sneaking contraband into a downtown Manhattan jail, then allegedly demanded sex for not arresting her on smuggling charges and having her barred from future visits. The officer, Robert Adams, was arrested Monday by the FBI for bribery and blackmail, several months after he began coercing the visitor into having sex with him, according to an indictment unsealed Monday in […]
A government chemist in Hawaii cooked up batches of LSD for active-duty members of the U.S. military who responded to ads for the powerful hallucinogen posted on social media, prosecutors allege. Trevor Keegan, an “extract tech” in the Disease Outbreak Control Division of the state Health Department, was charged earlier this month on one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. His alleged co-conspirator, Austin White, […]
At Middle School 839 in Brooklyn, teachers say there aren’t enough custodial staff on hand to carry out the city’s recommended pandemic cleaning plan. The electrostatic sprayer for disinfecting surfaces is missing parts and doesn’t work, they allege, while classroom windows only open three inches, making ventilation an issue. And the school only has about two weeks worth of face masks instead of the 30-day supply […]
The NYPD embedded at least one undercover informant among protesters demonstrating against police violence in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a newly unsealed court filing reveals. The disclosure was buried in an FBI affidavit in the case of Jeremy Trapp, 24, who was arrested by the NYPD on July 17, after he allegedly attempted to cut the brake lines on an NYPD van parked in […]
The Secret Service has purchased two jet skis that will help keep the Trump family safe while swimming, according to new U.S. government procurement data reviewed by The Daily Beast. Taxpayers will be picking up the $25,338 tab for the pair of personal watercraft, along with a trailer to transport them, which the agency bought from a Kawasaki dealership in Augusta, Georgia. “USSS: TWO RESCUE WATERCRAFT […]
China’s ambassador to the United States and a top Chinese diplomat in New York City have been facilitating their nation’s covert recruitment of scientists working in the United States, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court last year. The document, which was unsealed by a judge in April, provides an extraordinary window into China’s pursuit of U.S. trade secrets, shedding new light on its […]
A Virginia man inspired by notorious “incel” mass shooter Elliott Rodger fantasized about blowing up a shopping mall and killing “hot cheerleaders,” according to an FBI affidavit. On June 2, Cole Carini of Richlands, Virginia, showed up at the Clinch Valley Medical Center with a missing hand. Several fingers on Carini’s other hand were also gone, and he had shrapnel wounds to the neck and throat. […]
When the Republican governor of Idaho issued a plan to safely reopen businesses in the state, he ordered bars to stay closed until at least June 13. Last weekend, in defiance of those guidelines, Idaho’s lieutenant governor—also a Republican—reopened the tavern she owns with her family in Idaho Falls. A few days before reopening The Celt Pub and Grill, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin penned a scathing […]
A U.S. Army sergeant stationed at Fort Knox promised his wife he’d clean the couch—but didn’t. So, according to the FBI, she stabbed him. According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court, the incident began with an argument over housework and ended with a knifing. When military police responded to a domestic dispute call on the Kentucky base last Sunday, they found a sergeant first […]