[NBC] Ellison accepted a plea deal on charges of conspiracy and financial fraud in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into bankruptcy.
Caroline Ellison, whose testimony helped convict her former boss and ex-boyfriend, disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Ellison in New York City to 24 months and ordered her to forfeit $11 billion for her involvement in the collapse of Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange company, FTX. She had faced a maximum sentence of about 110 years.
Ellison, 29, accepted a plea deal on charges of conspiracy and financial fraud in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into bankruptcy. She testified against Bankman-Fried for nearly three days at his trial in November....
Lawyers for Ellison had asked that she be sentenced to time served and supervised release, citing her cooperation. In a court document filed this month, her lawyers said she made a swift return to the U.S. in 2022 from FTX’s headquarters in the Bahamas and voluntarily cooperated with the U.S. attorney’s office....
But Kaplan, describing FTX's collapse as possibly the greatest financial fraud uncovered in U.S. history, said he could not agree to a "literal get-out-of-jail-free card" for the defendant.
He ordered her to surrender to authorities on or after Nov. 7.
#6
Judging by the respective girlfriend pics, Diddy had more fun.
Made that joke the other day that Diddy was Hillary! favorite living rapper, until he isn't. Couple hours later Diddy was placed on 'suicide watch', so there is that.
[10News/Scripps Media] F*ck them and the ACLU. Roast in hell, POS. Typical MSM/Scripps Media whining
A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for breaking into a woman’s home and killing her, despite calls by her family and the prosecutor’s office that put him on death row to let him serve out the rest of his life in prison.
Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was repeatedly stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.
Williams’ hopes of having his sentence commuted to life in prison suffered dual setbacks Monday when, almost simultaneously, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied him clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to grant him a stay of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday.
Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole.
"The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live," the petition stated. "Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.
Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s Office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.
Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.
Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.
Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. His girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. She said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.
Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.
Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.
A crime scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.
Tuesday marked the third time Williams had faced execution. He was less than a week away from lethal injection in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing.
Williams was hours from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay. Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion.
Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.
Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purpose of sentencing.
Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s family. But Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place last month.
Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, also challenged the fairness of his trial, particularly the fact that only one of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors.
Larner testified at the August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement that Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.
Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.
Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/25/2024 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Cuts down on recidivism and saves taxpayer money - what's not to like?
Bobby submitted the same story, commenting Last week, we had several hundred bees relocated from a valve box in our front flower bed. We gave the honey to the bee-movers.
#3
Oh I dunno, I think all the other 11 hives are surviving just fine (with new queens), with many more hive well established, elsewhere.
That's the thing about swarming behaviors, bees will leave their hives and establish a new hive somewhere else (typically in tree hollows or some other hollow places like walls, etc.) especially when the queen die.
Cleaning the old hive is essential for getting a new queen to stay in the hive box.
Your local state university is an excellent resource on bee keeping, moving hives from the wild back into the boxes and so on.
#6
Way back in 1971 a buddy and I were cutting pine trees for lumber when we cut down one with a honeybee hive. I didn't realize how fast we could run. We came back later and got most of the honey. Best I ever had. It was a sweet reward for all the bee stings.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/25/2024 11:34 Comments ||
Top||
[BBC] Some 1,685 "seriously ill" inmates have been released from one of the most notorious prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest move to tackle overcrowding.
The release began at Makala Prison in the capital, Kinshasa, on Sunday.
It was there, at the beginning of this month, that 129 prisoners died in an attempted jailbreak. Some were shot dead by security forces while others were killed in a crush, officials said. So that opened up some beds spots on the floor
The government pledged to speed up its plans to decongest the prison, where conditions have been described as "true hell".
Mutamba said that those who needed medical attention would be treated while others would be sent home on buses provided by the government, the AP news agency reports.
The minister had already ordered the release of hundreds of others from Makala as he tries to get the prison population down. He has also banned the transfer of new inmates to the prison.
With a population of at least 14 million people , Kinshasa has two jails. In addition to Makala, the military prison of N’dole has an official capacity of 500.
Emmanuel Adu Cole, head of the Bill Clinton Foundation for Peace, a local NGO that focuses on prison conditions, welcomed the release, but added that more needed to be done to address the problems inside.
The jail, which was built in the 1950s, has a capacity for 1,500 inmates, but before this month's attempted jailbreak it was holding at least 12,000 people, according to various estimates.
One former inmate told the BBC that conditions inside were "true hell".
“Makala is not a prison, but a detention centre resembling a concentration camp, where people are sent to die,” Stanis Bujakera said. Not fast enough, apparently
Videos that he secretly filmed inside showed how tightly packed everyone was, as well as the inadequacy of the daily rations.
The authorities have long acknowledged the overcrowding problem.
Some officials have blamed magistrates for sending suspects to prison. In 2020, it was estimated that only 6% of the prisoners were actually serving sentences - the rest were stuck in DR Congo's legal system where cases can drag on for years.
[The Federalist] "America’s national health is not good," opened the Republican senator from Wisconsin, "even though America’s health care system spent $4.5 trillion dollars in 2022, or over $13,000 per person."
To put those numbers in perspective, American health care spending was just 5 percent of GDP when John F. Kennedy was president. That number soared to more than 17 percent in 2022, just a year before Kennedy’s nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would launch his own White House run.
"If America fails," Kennedy said at the Monday panel, "the chief reason will be because we let our country get sicker, more depressed, fatter, more infertile at an increasing rate while crippling our national security, bankrupting our national budget with health care costs."
"Every major pillar of the U.S. health care system as a statement of economic fact," Kennedy added, "makes money when Americans get sick."
Read that again: The Russians transported marooned American astronauts back to earth safely.
Boeing’s people should be mortified, and NASA should hang their head with shame that they did not ensure there would be back-up transportation. All credit and thanks to Roscosmos for generously providing transport to their American colleague despite the political difficulties back on Earth.
[NASA] The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft is seen as it lands in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan with Expedition 71 NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko, Monday, Sept. 23. Dyson is returning to Earth after logging 184 days in space as a member of Expeditions 70-71 aboard the International Space Station and Chub and Kononenko return after having spent the last 374 days in space.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft is seen as it lands in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan with Expedition 71 NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko, Monday, Sept. 23. Dyson is returning to Earth after logging 184 days in space as a member of Expeditions 70-71 aboard the International Space Station and Chub and Kononenko return after having spent the last 374 days in space.
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson completed a six-month research mission aboard the International Space Station on Monday, returning to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
The trio departed the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft at 4:36 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, making a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 7:59 a.m. (4:59 p.m. Kazakhstan time), southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Dyson conducted multiple scientific and technology activities including the operation of a 3D bioprinter to print cardiac tissue samples, which could advance technology for creating replacement organs and tissues for transplants on Earth. Dyson also participated in the crystallization of model proteins to evaluate the performance of hardware that could be used for pharmaceutical production and ran a program that used student-designed software to control the station’s free-flying robots, inspiring the next generation of innovators.
Dyson launched on March 23 and arrived at the station March 25 alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya were aboard the station for 12 days before returning home with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6.
#1
Embedded comments are in ignorance: Dyson went up on the Soyuz, and was always scheduled to return on it. This was a normal rotation involving a routine seat swap between NASA and Roscosmos.
Police in Malaysia have rescued 572 children following an investigation into an Islamic charity group that allegedly operated a child s—x abuse ring. 59 of the recovered children are under five years old. Read: https://t.co/tugPu64LGA
On Monday, Malaysian police announced that officers rescued an additional 187 children after conducting raids at various locations across the country associated with an Islamic business organization currently under investigation for alleged child sex abuse crimes.
The children were rescued from welfare homes linked to Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB Holdings). At least 572 children under the age of 18 have been rescued since the case began earlier this month, National police chief Razarudin Husain said, as per AP News.
Of the 187 children who were recently rescued, 59 of them were under the age of 5, police said. Online videos obtained by authorities showed physical assaults on the children, including a young boy being caned and another child getting stepped on. Police arrested 156 additional suspects during the most recent operation, Husain said.
While living at these GISB properties, according to police, children were reportedly sodomized, instructed to sexually assault one another, denied medical care, and burned with hot metal spoons as a form of punishment. Medical screenings revealed that at least 13 children were sodomized, and 172 children sustained long-term emotional and physical injuries.
According to the police, the victims are primarily children of GISB employees who have been confined to their homes since they were infants. They are believed to have been indoctrinated from a young age to be loyal to the Islamic group.
The GISB is dedicated to promoting an Islamic lifestyle in Malaysia and abroad. The group owns mini-markets, pharmacies, restaurants, bakeries, and other enterprises. Its origins can be traced back to the Al Arqam Islamic sect, which was declared heretical and prohibited by the government in 1994.
Al Aqram is a puritanical cult along Gulenist lines — self-sufficiency, hard work, education, building a Moslem utopian community — with the usual semi-worship of the charismatic founder, Ashaari Muhammad. The heresy was setting up the founder as another prophet like Mohammed. GISB is said to have millions of dollars of asset, despite being banned.
Police detained members of GISB's senior management, including CEO Narsirudding Mohamad Ali, two of his wives, and two of his children, last week. Additionally, certain relatives of Ashaari Mohamad, who served as the executive director of Al Arqam prior to his passing in 2010, were apprehended, as per the network.
The police chief stated that an estimated 10,000 employees and officials of GISB were believed to be practicing the Al Arqam teachings, and indicated that Islamic authorities have launched an investigation.
Police have conducted raids at 280 locations across the country associated with GISB; however, the majority of these locations were vacated. In 59 of the locations, police confiscated Islamic literature and materials that contained deviant teachings. Husain stated that authorities have suspended 138 bank accounts associated with GISB, which have a total value of approximately $452,000, as well as 14 properties, as part of an investigation into money laundering. Numerous individuals have been charged with sexually assaulting minors, police said.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NBC] Ellison accepted a plea deal on charges of conspiracy and financial fraud in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into bankruptcy.
Someone described her as "always the one playing the caterpillar in high school plays" and now I can't unsee it 
[10News/Scripps Media] 
[The Federalist] "America’s national health is not good," opened the Republican senator from Wisconsin, "even though America’s health care system spent $4.5 trillion dollars in 2022, or over $13,000 per person."
