Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Radical Professor at Kent State University Charged With Lying to FBI in ISIS Probe

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Kent State University history professor Julio Pino has been under investigation about alleged ties to ISIS

CLEVELAND — A radical professor at Kent State University has been charged with lying to the FBI during a probe into his possible connections to the Islamic State.

Julio Pino, 58, who has taught history at the Ohio university since 1992, is charged with falsely telling investigators he didn’t know a man he messaged with online and egged on as he discussed killing people, including a judge involved in his custody case.

“I’m playing the game backwards.  and winning! . . . I will kill 100s of people if they take my rights as a father away!” the man, identified in court papers only as J.E. said.

“Devour them, [J.E.],” Pino replied.

In January 2016, the man was charged with threatening a judge. Around that time, the FBI launched a probe into Pino, questioning his students about whether he attempted to recruit any of them to join ISIS. At the time, Pino called the allegations preposterous.

A Muslim convert, Pino has long been a lightning rod for controversy. In 2002, he wrote a newspaper column, eulogizing a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. Nearly a decade later, he shouted “Death to Israel” at a lecture by a former Israeli diplomat.

There have been calls to revoke his tenure, but the school always refused on first amendment grounds. The school has suspended him following the filing of charges on Monday. His attorney told Cleveland.com, that his client is planning to retire.

N. Carolina Truck Driver Jailed For Lying About Role in Bosnian Massacre

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A woman weeps at a memorial to those slain in the Srebrenica massacre

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — A Serbian man who came to the U.S. in the 1990s as a refugee from the bloody Balkan wars, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for lying about his role in one of the war’s most brutal massacres.

Milan Trisic, 55, admitted that he was a member of the feared Bratunac Brigade during the war in Bosnia and Herzogovina and took part in the bloody Srebrenica massacre in 1995 in which up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were summarily executed.

The killings are considered the worst war atrocity in Europe since World War II, and late last year, former Serbian general, Ratko Miladic, was found guilty by a U.N. tribunal of genocide and crimes against humanity for commanding the slaughter at Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo. He was sentenced to life in prison.

When Trisic applied for refugee status, prosecutors say he claimed to have lived in Serbia during the war, hiding the fact that he was involved in arresting and beating thousands of  Muslim prisoners and transporting them to be killed and buried in mass graves.

Once he moved to the United States, Trisic settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he became a truck driver and raised a family. He eventually obtained a green card by similarly lying about his wartime activities on his application.

“Those who wish to live in the United States ought to respect our laws, support our national security, and pursue residency legally and honestly.  Anything less is inexcusable,” said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Trisic will be deported back to Serbia upon completion of his sentence. It is unclear if he will face war crimes charges upon his return to his homeland.

Suspected Serial Killer Targeting Vegas’ Homeless Charged in 4 Shootings

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Joshua Castellon is believed to be the serial killer going after homeless people in Vegas

LAS VEGAS — A suspected serial killer targeting homeless people in Las Vegas has been arrested and charged with fatally shooting two people and wounding two others in what appear to be random attacks, police said.

Joshua Castellon, 26, was initially arrested by the FBI last week on a weapons charge, but has now been charged with murdering two homeless in cold blood as they slept. He has also been charged with two other similar shootings in which the victims survived, the Las Vegas police said.

“The good news is that we have a suspect in custody and we’re relieved that a dangerous person is off the streets,” said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Robert Plummer.

Police say the shootings appeared to be random.

The first fatal shooting occurred in the early morning hours of Jan. 29 when a man was shot to death while sleeping outside a business. Later that morning a second homeless man was taken to a hospital after being shot in the mouth. He lived.

A third man was shot by a passing motorist as he cleaned a car and also survived. Four days later, a surveillance camera captured a man walking up to a homeless man under  bridge and fatally shooting him, police said.

In mid-February, detectives began closing in on Castellon after receiving some tips, contacting his estranged wife who told them she believed her husband had bought a gun in January. When detectives caught up to Castellon, he agreed to come in for an interview.

Castellon was initially arrested after he told detectives he had bought the gun with the intention of selling it to someone else. The handgun believed to have been used in the shootings has not been recovered.

Muslim Convert Charged With Killing Neo-Nazi Roommates Deemed Unfit for Trial

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Devon Arthurs was once a neo-Nazi who later found Islam

TAMPA, Florida — A former white supremacist who gunned down his neo-Nazi roommates after converting to Islam has been found mentally unfit to stand trial.

Devon Arthurs, 18, said he fatally shot his ex-roommates Jeremy Himmelman, 22, and Andrew Oneschuk, 18, with an assault rifle inside their Tampa condo in May because they had disrespected his new faith, authorities said.

But Dr. Yolanda Leon found Arthurs incompetent to stand trial on two counts of first-degree murder, the Tampa Bay Times reported. But before the judge ruled on the matter, prosecutors asked for a second opinion.

Arthurs told police he had been friends with Himmelman and Oneschuk and a fourth roommate, Brandon Russell — who wasn’t home at the time of the shooting — with all four sharing neo-Nazi beliefs. But the friendship faltered when Arthurs converted to Islam and grew angry at U.S. actions in Muslim countries.

When investigators searched the condo where they all lived, they discovered bomb-making materials in Russell’s room, as well as neo-Nazi literature and a  photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Russell, who told police he was member of Atomwaffen, a neo-Nazi group active on college campuses,  pleaded guilty to federal explosives charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Missing Woman’s Remains Found Cooking in Pot at Ex-Husband’s Home

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Magdalena Romero’s remains were found cooking in a pot after having gone missing more than a week earlier

TAXCO, Mexico — The chopped-up remains of a woman who had disappeared in a southern Mexican town were found bubbling away in a pot at her ex-husband’s business, police said.

Magdalena Aguilar Romero, 25, was last seen on Jan. 13 when she left her home in Taxco to pick up her kids at her ex-husband’s home.

On Monday, police discovered her remains at a botany center owned by her ex, Cesar Gomez Arciniega.

“It is presumed that she was cooked,”Guerrero state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said.

Investigators described a grisly scene, saying Romero’s arms and legs were found boiling in a pot on a stove in a back storeroom. Her already-cooked pelvis was in a bag on the floor, and other body parts were stashed in a freezer, police said.

Prosecutors said they are investigating whether Arciniega committed  “femicide,” a gender-based hate crime.

According to a government report released last month, murders of women in Mexico have risen sharply over the last decade following two decades of decline.

The state of Guerrero had the second highest “femicide” rate in 2016, official statistics show.

Black Gunman Eyed as Serial Killer in Slayings of 5 White KC Hikers

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Frederick Demond Scott has been charged in the death of two men and is a top suspect in three other killings

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — A 22-year-old Missouri man is being eyed as a possible serial killer responsible for the shooting deaths of five middle aged men who he may have targeted because they were white, authorities said.

Frederick Demond Scott, who is black, has been charged in the fatal shootings of two of the victims and is considered a top suspect in the death of three others who were all gunned down along a popular hiking trail in Kansas City.

Police say it is not clear if the attacks were racially motivated, but in 2014, Scott was arrested for threatening to shoot up a high school “Columbine style” and “kill all white people,” according to the Kansas City Star.

He was sentenced to six months in jail but later had the sentence suspended and was put on probation. His mother told the paper that her son suffered from paranoid schizophrenia but refused to get treatment.

The victims, who ranged in age from 54 to 67, were killed on and around the Indian Creek hiking trail between August 2016 and August of this year. Several of the shootings appeared to be ambush killings in which the victims were shot in the back of the head. Some were killed while walking their dogs, with the animals remaining by their sides until their bodies were found.

Police say Scott boasted, “they didn’t see it coming,” when questioned by detectives.

Investigators got a break in the case after the fifth killing, which occurred on a city street in broad daylight, when they located surveillance footage showing Scott follow the victim a bus before he was shot.

Scott was later linked to the scene from DNA detectives lifted from a iced tea bottle and a cigarette butt found at the scene of the final killing. The DNA also matched that found on a t-shirt left at the scene of an earlier killing.

People who knew Scott said he had never been the same following the shooting death of his half-brother, Gerrod Woods, in a robbery in 2015. The killer in that case, who is black, was recently sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Oklahoma Top Cop Resigns After Being Tied to Neo-Nazi Organizations

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Bart Alsbrook was named Colbert’s interim police just last week

COLBERT, Oklahoma — The interim police chief in a small town on the Oklahoma-Texas border has resigned after a local TV station reported that he appeared to have ties to neo-Nazi organizations.

Bart Alsbrook had been a reserve police officer in Colbert until being named interim chief last week.

But news station KXII-TV reported soon after that a Bart Alsbrook showed up in records as the owner of two websites, ISD Records and NS88 Videos, that sell neo-Nazi paraphernalia, like such as music by “The Klansmen,” and Nazi patches.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, has listed both sites as connected to hate groups. The Center also listed him as the Texas coordinator of Blood & Honour USA, a racist skinhead gang.

When contacted by the Tulsa World newspaper, Alsbrook insisted that someone had stolen his identity and that he was not responsible for the websites.

“Someone has been using my name for years on the Internet in regards to racist topics. It’s not me, rather someone who has hijacked my name due to my combativeness and rejection to white power skinheads who were always coming to the heavy metal shows, starting fights and messing up our scene,” he said. “We hate each other. They use my name in all sorts of things.”

But within hours of being contacted by the local TV station, both web sites tied to Alsbrook were taken down.

 

 

 

KKK Prison Guards in Florida Convicted in Plot to Murder Black Inmate

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From left: Charles Thomas Newcomb, David Elliot Moran and Thomas Jordan Driver

LAKE CITY, Florida — A pair of Florida prison guards who were secretly members of the KKK have been convicted of plotting to murder a black inmate after his release.

Prosecutors said the plot dated back to 2015, when David Elliot Moran, 49, and Charles Thomas Newcomb, 45, and a third guard who had previously pleaded guilty, tried to enlist the help of an FBI informant to kill the inmate.

The men were infuriated by the inmate after he bit the third guard, Thomas Jordan Driver, 27, who, like the others, is  a member of the Traditionalist American Knights branch of the Ku Klux Klan, during a fight. The three guards believed the prisoner was infected with HIV and hepatitis.

One version of the plot involved injecting the inmate with insulin and then forcing him face down into a river with a fishing pole in his hand to make it look an accident. Another involved shooting him and chopping his body into pieces.

But the scheme was quickly foiled after recorded conversations between the three former guards and the FBI informant revealed the murder plot.

“These Klansmen plotted to murder a black inmate after he was released from prison, but swift action and clever investigative tactics on behalf of investigators foiled their plot and may have saved a life,” said Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

At the time of the murder conspiracy, Driver and Moran were guards at the Department of Corrections Reception and Medical Center in rural north Florida. Newcomb was a former correctional officer who had been fired in 2013 for failing to meet training requirements.

Driver pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder in March and was sentenced to four years in prison.

The head of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Frank Ancona was shot and killed in Missouri earlier this year and his body dumped by a river. His wife and son-in-law have been charged in his death.

 

Cops Hunt Man Who Stole Signs Meant for the Blind Along a Hiking Trail

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U.S. Cops are asking for help identifying this man

GENESEE PARK, Colorado — Cops are hunting for a brazen thief who made off with 37 Braille interpretive signs meant to help the blind from a hiking trail in Colorado.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s office says the man took the signs — valued at over $18,000 — from two trails in Genesee Park sometime between April 22 and May 6.

A man caught on surveillance footage stealing a laminated paper sign that had been placed in the park to replace one of the stolen signs is considered a “person of interest,” cops said.

Investigators described him as between 55- and 65-years-old, with white hair, but bald on top. They said he stands between 160 and 190 pounds at the time of the theft, and was wearing a blue jacket with white lettering on the left breast. He was accompanied by a small black dog, cops said.

Tipsters are encouraged to call the sheriff’s office at 303-271-5612.

Man Convicted in Bizarre Adult Adoption Immigration Scheme

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Helaman Hansen says he meant well, and making off with $1 million was just a coincidence

SACRAMENTO, California — A man accused of bilking hundreds of illegal immigrants out of over $1 million with the false promise of securing them citizenship by having them adopted as adults, has been convicted of fraud.

Helaman Hansen, 64, of Elk Grove, California was accused of running the bizarre and elaborate scheme from 2012 through 2016, netting as much as $10,000 from each of the immigrants he conned.

The scam was based around the bogus promise that the victims would be granted U.S. citizenship if they were legally adopted by an American. Hansen did arrange for several adult victims to be adopted but none ever received citizenship as the law only allows someone under the age of 16 to be granted such status following an adoption.

In reality, adult adoptions are exceedingly rare, and Hansen’s con came unwound when court officials in the Sacramento and Alameda Superior Courts noticed an unusual amount of such adoptions and grew suspicious that something wasn’t kosher.

Prosecutors say that Hansen had created a number of entities, such as Americans Helping America, to sell memberships in what he called a “Migration Program,” through which the adoptions would be arranged.  At the beginning, memberships were sold for an annual fee of $150, but that cost gradually grew as high as $10,000.

Many of Hansen’s victims were over the age of 50 and a substantial number hailed from Pacific island nations like Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand, prosecutors said.

In all, prosecutors say he duped over 500 people and collected over $1 million in fees.

After an 11-day trial, a federal jury found Hansen guilty of 12 counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and two counts of encouraging and inducing illegal immigration for private financial gain. He faces up to 20 years in prison.