[AJC Birdcage Liner] An Atlanta lawyer and business owner previously employed by the city as a police officer and attorney was found guilty Tuesday of defrauding the federal government out of more than $7 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds.
Prosecutors alleged Shelitha Robertson used the funds her businesses received to buy a Rolls-Royce car, a motorcycle, and a 10-carat diamond ring for $148,000, among other things.
Robertson had denied grossly exaggerating the number of people employed by four of her companies in order to obtain millions of dollars in federal aid designed to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
She blamed her companies’ fraudulent 2020 PPP loan applications on her then-friend and personal attorney, Chandra Norton, who pleaded guilty in a separate prosecution.
A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about 13 hours over two days before finding Robertson guilty on three counts of wire fraud and single counts of money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Robertson, who has remained on bond since pleading not guilty to the five charges in December 2022, was immediately remanded into custody pending her sentencing, scheduled for April 11.
Federal prosecutor Ariel Glasner said Robertson had threatened to kill Norton upon arrest and separately threatened another person who subsequently filed a police report.
Craig A. Gillen, Robertson’s lead attorney, said her remarks to arresting agents about Norton were made in frustration and did not constitute a legitimate threat. He said Robertson was separately involved in a business dispute with a contractor in Texas, in which no threat was made. "In frustration. Context!"
"There’s no history of violence or anger or danger by the defendant to anybody other than the statement she made when she was arrested," Gillen said.
Robertson occasionally shook her head from side to side after U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg read the verdict but otherwise showed little reaction. Gillen said aspects of the trial, including the presentation of what he described as hearsay evidence, would be raised on appeal.
Prosecutors said Robertson and Norton were best friends and partners in crime who together schemed to get as much money in PPP loans as they could, ultimately receiving almost $8 million.
Robertson transferred $50,000 in PPP funding to her daughter, who has not been charged, withdrew $25,000 of the funds in cash, and gave Norton $400,000, prosecutors said.
#2
WFB: Harvard University on Tuesday received a complaint outlining over 40 allegations of plagiarism against its embattled president, Claudine Gay. The document paints a picture of a pattern of misconduct more extensive than has been previously reported and puts the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body—which said it initiated an "independent review" of Gay's scholarship and issued a statement of support for her leadership—back in the spotlight.
The new allegations, which were submitted to Harvard's research integrity officer, Stacey Springs, include the examples reported by the Washington Free Beacon and other outlets, as well as dozens of additional cases in which Gay quoted or paraphrased authors without proper attribution, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by the Free Beacon. They range from missing quotation marks around a few phrases or sentences to entire paragraphs lifted verbatim.
The full list of examples spans seven of Gay's publications—two more than previously reported—which comprise almost half of her scholarly output. Though the Harvard Corporation said earlier this month that it initiated an independent review of Gay's work in October and found "no violation of Harvard's standards for research misconduct," that probe focused on just three papers.
"[I]t is impossible that your office has already reviewed the entirety of these materials," the complaint reads, "as many … have not been previously reported or submitted."
All allegations of faculty plagiarism must be reviewed by Harvard's research integrity officer, according to the school's official policies, and if deemed credible are referred for further investigation. A guilty finding can result in a range of consequences—including "suspension," "rank reduction," and "termination of employment."
In determining the appropriate sanction, the school claims to consider whether the misconduct "was an isolated event or part of a pattern."
Lurking in the background of the complaint is the question of whether Gay, Harvard's 30th president, will be held to the same standards as the university's own students, dozens of whom are disciplined for plagiarism each year. The school has typically been softer on faculty accused of academic dishonesty, either giving them a symbolic slap on the wrist or dismissing the charges altogether.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2023 9:42 Comments ||
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#2
California is mostly desert and the population has doubled since 1970 but no new reservoirs have been build to capture snow melt from the Sierra Mountains. Instead, Newsom wants us to drink sewage while he drinks wine and aspires to be POTUS. He has also usurped local zoning control from cities and counties to force massive new apartment complexes on us. Well, he has to put all those illegal aliens somewhere and they're probably already accustomed to drinking sewage in their countries or origin.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2023 13:14 Comments ||
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#3
Epic water politic failures are the apogee of California's demokrat idiocy. The charade of water bond issues over the decades, billions spent, and not a resevoir or catchment basin in sight, not a single shovelful of dirt turned. Like hi-speed rail, just phantasms of feel-good bullsh*t to fool the rubes and enrich the special interests and SEIU.
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[AFRICANEWS] Zambia, already facing its worst anthrax epidemic in more than a decade, has recorded new deaths caused by cholera, health authorities in the southern African country reported on Tuesday.
Four people died of cholera in the capital Lusaka in 24 hours, bringing the number of victims of this infection to 64 for the entire country since the start of the year.
According to the National Institute of Public Health of Zambia, 46 of these deaths were recorded in the capital, as well as , over the same period.1,600 infections
Acute diarrheal infection caused by the absorption of food or water contaminated by bacteria, cholera is on the rise on the continent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Health Minister Sylvia Masebo said the government was distributing chlorine to purify water in areas affected by the epidemic and called on the population to respect strict hygiene measures.
These new deaths come days after the WHO announced that the country was facing its worst anthrax outbreak since 2011. Since the start of the year, the; anthrax - oranthrax - has claimed four lives and 700 suspected cases in the country, according to the WHO.
The bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which survives for decades in the form of spores in land where animals that died of anthrax or carried the disease have been buried in the past, is transmissible to the disease. man and potentially fatal in its rarest forms.
According to the WHO, 26 of the suspected cases in Zambia come from "consumption of meat taken from the carcasses of three hippos". The organization warned of a "high" risk of the anthrax epidemic spreading to neighboring countries, given "the frequent (cross-border) movements of populations and animals". Important safety tip: Don't eat the hippos.
Or at least not hippos found dead at the side of the road.
[FoxNews] A Texas town is celebrating its most popular time of the year as it is officially the Christmas Capital of Texas.
Grapevine, Texas — in the heart of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex — is home to more than 50,000 people. It becomes even more popular around the holidays.
In 2009, the Texas State Senate proclaimed the town the Christmas Capital of Texas after its extreme efforts at celebrating the holiday season.
Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau director of communications Elizabeth Schrack told Fox News Digital how the town makes sure to deck the halls.
"We have more than 1,400 events over 40 days," she said.
[FoxNews] Juwan Marquise-Alexander Brown
A former Detroit police officer is facing manslaughter charges in the death of a 71-year-old man who fell to the ground after the officer punched him during an altercation in September.
Juwan Marquise-Alexander Brown, 29, was arraigned in the 36th District Court earlier Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty and was given a $100,000 bond, Detroit’s FOX 2 reported.
Prosecutors say 71-year-old Detroit resident Daryl Vance was punched during a "verbal confrontation" with Officer Brown outside a bowling alley on September 1. The on-duty officer was originally responding to a call that Vance was being disorderly.
Vance fell to the ground and hit his head. He died three weeks later in the hospital.
"Police officers frequently deal with citizens who are disorderly and verbally unpleasant. But the evidence in this case shows that the officer allegedly was the aggressor, and his actions went criminally beyond what was necessary in this situation," prosecutor Kym Worthy said.
Making their corner of the world a happier place this Christmas season.
[BBC] An event that saw almost 100 tractors take to a county's roads in Christmas lights has raised thousands for charity.
The colourful Light Parade, which launched last year, travelled through villages in East Suffolk on Sunday.
It raised more than £6,000 for Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue (SULSAR) and the Woodbridge charity, Just42.
Lead organiser Liz Quickenden said the response had been "overwhelmingly positive".
Ms Quickenden said the parade was spurred on by the cost of living crisis, which forced many families to make the decision not to decorate their homes with Christmas lights.
She said the event, sponsored by NFU Mutual, aimed to bring some festive cheer to the local community - and would return in 2024.
#3
Now that they've pretty much written off all the other prosecutions in the the 'Fat Leonard' case.
It now appears that Leonard got caught in a tax violation, and spun up a story to make a deal.
Only managed to gut the upper 7th fleet.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/21/2023 8:32 Comments ||
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#4
Fat Leonard didn’t kill himself.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/21/2023 16:38 Comments ||
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#5
He didn't starve to death
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2023 18:54 Comments ||
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[NY Post] Good thing they've made "political investments", right? Treason and bribery by any other name
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Biden last month that he intends to end Taiwan’s decades-long de facto independence — peacefully, if possible.
Xi told the 81-year-old commander-in-chief that "Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided," NBC News reported Wednesday, citing three current and former US officials briefed on the meeting.
The White House didn’t deny the exchange, which occurred during a Nov. 15 summit outside San Francisco that was attended by a dozen US and Chinese officials.
"I’m not gonna get into the specifics of the discussion between the two leaders," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One en route to Milwaukee. "I think you can understand I’m not gonna read out that private conversation."
"President Xi has been public and clear about his desires for reunification — that’s not something that’s different or new," Kirby added.
The White House spokesperson went on to say that the US will continue to adhere to its "One China" policy of not recognizing Taiwan as independent and added that "as the president has said, there’s no reason for this to come to blows."
At the summit, Xi said that "China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force," and said that "US military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027 ... were wrong because he has not set a time frame," NBC reported.
The so-called Chinese "president for life" and Biden met for four hours and US readouts of the talks didn’t mention any notable updates regarding Taiwan, which has been self-governing since the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s Communists in the Chinese civil war.
Biden said last year that US troops would defend Taiwan if it was threatened by Beijing.
Saman Abbas, 18, was living near Bologna when she disappeared in May 2021
She had rejected her family's demands to marry a cousin, with a court ruling that her parents had ordered her killing and that she was strangled by her uncle
The parents, Shabbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen, were sentenced to life in prison, while her uncle, Danish Hasnain, was handed a 14-year prison term after accepting a plea bargain. Two cousins were found not guilty and were released from jail.
Abbas' father, who was extradited from Pakistan in August, professed his innocence during a tearful statement to the court before deliberations. Taking out the Paki trash
His wife, Shaheen, was tried in absentia and is believed to still be in Pakistan.
The trial was the most high-profile of several criminal investigations in Italy in recent years dealing with the slaying or mistreatment of immigrant women or girls who rebelled against family insistence that they marry someone chosen for them.
An autopsy revealed the young woman had a broken neck bone, possibly caused by strangulation, in a case that has shocked the country.
#1
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.[To Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati religious funeral practice of burning widows alive on her husband’s funeral pyre.]”
― Charles James Napier
[SAHARAREPORTERS] A woman, Samira Sabzian, convicted of murdering her husband, whom she married while still a child has been hanged in Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... on Wednesday, defying an international campaign for clemency.
According to the AFP News, Sabzian, who had been in prison for the past decade, was executed at dawn in Ghezel Hesar prison in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said.
Her execution comes as concern grows over the number of people this year executed by Iran, where hundreds of people have been hanged mainly on drugs and murder charges, including more than a dozen women.
IHR said Sabzian was a "child bride" who had married her husband at the age of 15 and had been a victim of domestic violence, according to relatives.
The Hengaw rights group also confirmed the execution of the woman, now believed to be in her late 20s or early 30s, saying that she was originally from the city of Khorramabad in the western Lorestan province.
Amnesia Amnesty International said it was "horrified" by the reports of the "chilling execution", saying the mother of two was "subjected to a forced and early marriage as a child".
The office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said it was "alarmed" by the execution, saying Sabzian had been forced to marry her husband while aged 15.
"We again urge Iran to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing death penalty ," it added.
The execution has so far not been reported by media inside Iran.
Sabzian was arrested around a decade ago when she was aged 19 on charges of murdering her husband and then subsequently sentenced to death, IHR said.
She had two children who she had not seen after her arrest until a final meeting in prison earlier this month, IHR said.
"Samira was a victim of years of gender apartheid, child marriage and domestic violence, and today she fell victim to the incompetent and corrupt regime's killing machine," said IHR director Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/21/2023 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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.
[NY Post] 
[AFRICANEWS] 
[FoxNews] 
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] 
[NY Post] 
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
