Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Bad Mom Busted For Locking Kids in Trunk of Car While Shopping

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Tori Lee Castillo

RIVERDALE, Utah — Some people really just don’t seem to get the whole parenting thing.

A Utah mom was arrested after she left her two kids in the trunk of her car as she went shopping at Wal-Mart, cops said.

Cops received numerous calls from concerned passersby who heard the two tots — aged 2 and 5 — banging frantically on the inside of the trunk and shaking the vehicle in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Riverdale, Utah.

“Several good Samaritans observed this and came to the aid of the children,” Riverdale Police Lt. Casey Warren told the Deseret News.

Officers were able to guide the older child to the emergency release lever and the kids were freed unharmed.

Their mom,  Tori Lee Castillo, 39, was taken into custody when sher returned to the vehicle. She was charged with child abuse. Children’s protective services was called, police said, and the children were released to a relative.

 

Phony Cancer Victim Charged With Fraud for Using Fake Illness to Raise Cash

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Jennifer Cataldo raised over $100,000 from friends and relatives

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — This is sick.

A woman who falsely claimed she was battling with cancer in order to bilk her friends and family out of cash has been hit with federal fraud charges.

Jennifer Flynn Cataldo, 37, of Sterrett, Alabama, pretended she was terminally ill and convinced pals to give her $1000,000, all of which she put in her pocket, prosecutors said.

“Sadly, crimes like this make good people think twice before they are willing to be charitable,” FBI Special Agent Roger Stanton said. “It is hard to comprehend how anyone could sink so low as to claim to have cancer just to fuel their greed.”

Federal authorities say that between 2014 and 2017, Cataldo told her friends and family that she was dying from cancer and allegedly solicited contributions from people she knew to fund her lifestyle.

For example, in January 2016, Cataldo allegedly launched a GoFundMe campaign dubbed “Mom had Terminal Cancer Disney Trip,” with the goal of raising $4,000 to take her daughter to Disney World before she died.

The campaign ended up raising more than $10,000, prosecutors said.

Then in September 2016, a friend who believed Cataldo was dying created a second GoFundMe page titled, “Jenny Flynn Cataldo Medical Care,” to raise $20,000. It ultimately took in $25,000.

In both cases, prosecutors say Cataldo transferred the cash from the GoFundMe accounts into her personal bank account.

Cataldo, who was hit with state charges in Alabama earlier this month, faces up to 20 years on each of several counts of wire fraud she now faces in federal court and up to 30 years on bank fraud charges.

GoFundMe officials have said they are working to recover the cash and return it to anyone who donated to Cataldo.

Man Charged With Assault in Unlicensed Castration of Transgender Woman

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James Pennington

DENVER — A man who removed the testicles of a transgender woman even though he doesn’t have a medical license has been charged with felony assault.

James Pennington, 57, used a scalpel from an army surgical kit to to remove the woman’s testicles at her Denver home on May 17, cops said. He then sutured the incision and told the woman to call 911 if complications were to develop.

The woman had agreed to allow Pennington to perform the operation and her wife watched as the 90-minute procedure was performed.

When the woman’s wife changed the dressing a few hours later., she discovered that the victim was bleeding heavily from the incision so she called 911. Paramedics took the woman to the hospital and contacted police.

In a letter to reporters, the woman insisted that Pennington was not a monster and that she had been forced to rely on the back-alley procedure because of failings in the U.S. health care system.

“Arranging a back-alley surgery was out of pure desperation due to a system that failed me,” the woman, who identified herself simply as Jane Doe, wrote in the letter. “Until this system is fixed and transgender people are encouraged and able to get the care that we need, there will always be cases like mine.”

Couple Snatch Hearse, Dump Body by Side of Road in Texas

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BRYAN, Texas — Talk about grave robbers.

A Texas couple were arrested after stealing a hearse land then tossing the body that was in the back out on the side of a country road.

The pair took the vehicle, an unmarked tan Chevy Suburban, early Friday after the driver left it idling in a convenience store parking lot while he went in to buy something to eat.

The body that had been in the back was found a couple of hours later still strapped to a gurney and covered with a sheet alongside a rural road about 10 miles from where the vehicle had been stolen, the Brazos County Sheriff’s office said.

Investigators caught up with the thieves later in the day when cops spotted the stolen hearse driving on a rural road.

Police identified the couple as Adam Crow, 27, and Tanya Labrecht, 28. Both were charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, and Albrecht was hit with a charge of abusing of a corpse.

Crow (l) and Albrecht

Masturbating Sicko Busted for Hiring Prostitutes to Strip on Neighbor’s Porch

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David Goldsberry

OMAHA, Nebraska– Worst. Neighbor. Ever.

A Nebraska man has been charged with hiring prostitutes to strip on his neighbor’s front porch while he covertly watched and masturbated in his home across the street.

Douglas Goldsberry, 45,  was arrested The couple who lived in the home with their two young children reported to police numerous alarming encounters of call girls showing up at their door demanding payment and pimp’s peeking in their windows, police said.

Investigators say they believe Goldsberry had been engaging in the bizarre practice for several years. His neighbors reported at least 75 instances of woman coming to their home, but cops believe there may have been many more instances that occurred when the family wasn’t home.

At first, the episodes would occur once a month or so, cops said, but had recently escalated. In March, the family said women had arrived on eight separate occasions.

“When it got more and more and more, they got law enforcement more heavily involved,” Lt. Will Rinn of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office told the Omaha World.

The reports led police to set up surveillance and they were able to zero in on Goldsberry after interviewing several of the prostitutes, who had been hired out of classified ads posted on Backpage.

“What we found out was, basically, this guy hasn’t been paying these prostitutes either,” Dunning said.

When Goldsberry, who works as a chef,  was arrested last week, cops found him in an Omaha Hotel with a suicide note and a noose fashioned from an electrical cord nearby. He was charged with felony pandering.

On the day of his arrest, Goldsberry’s wife filed for divorce.

Ex-Guyana Health Minister Sentenced in Illegal New York Pain Pill Enterprise

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Noel Blackman was Guyana’s health minister from 1985-1992

NEW YORK — A Long Island pain doctor who had once been the minister of health for Guyana, was sentenced to 50 months in prison for illegally prescribing hundreds of thousands of powerful pain pills to addicts.

Noel Blackman, who served as the health minister of the South American country in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ran a number of pain management clinics in Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island, from which he wrote prescriptions for oxycodone in exchange for $300, federal prosecutors said.

In total, the 68-year-old Blackman had been charged with writing 1,920 prescriptions for 365,000 30-milligram pills. Authorities said the pills had a street value of approximately $57,000.

He was arrested in February 2016 by Homeland Security agents who took him off a plane bound for Guyana. A search of his bags revealed $30,00 in cash tucked inside.

He pleaded guilty last August. In addition to the jail time, Blackman was ordered to pay $536,000 in fines.

“Blackman violated his professional oath to put his patients’ legitimate medical needs first, and instead chose to line his pockets with the proceeds of sales from oxycodone, which has ravaged communities in New York City and on Long Island,” said acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde.

News outlets in Guyana said Blackman was headed back there to become the  Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. He is also the co-owner of Guyana’s Channel 9 television station, which is also known as HBTV, or Hoyte-Blackman Television.

Cops Hunt Three Creeps in Baltimore Cemetery Rape

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BALTIMORE — Police are hunting for three men allegedly responsible for a terrifying graveside rape of a woman who was visiting a relative’s tomb in a Baltimore cemetery.

Investigators say the men approached the woman at around 11:30 p.m. on April 30th at the Voshell Memorial Gardens Cemetery and pulled out a gun. They then stole her money and cell phone before taking turns raping her, cops said.

The suspects then fled and the woman went to a local hospital, cops said.

Police released an artist’s sketch of one of the suspects whom they described as a very pale, white man around 50-years-old, who stood about 5-foot-7, weighs 200 pounds and had long gray hair in a ponytail and sported a long gray beard that was braided in the middle. He was wearing dark-colored “Docker” pants and sandals at the time.

The second suspect was described as a 5-foot-10 white man in his late 20’s. He had short dark brown hair, wore a large gauge earring in his left ear, and tan shorts and a dark polo shirt.

The last suspect was described as a bi-racial 5-foot-9 man who weighed around 250 lbs and appeared to be in his 30’s. He was wearing flips flops, tan shorts, polo shirt with a college logo on the front.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Baltimore Police Department’s sex offense detectives at 410-396-2076.

Couple Ran Prison Taxi Service for Inmates to Buy Booze, Smokes: Feds

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The U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta is a minimum-security facility

ATLANTA — Hard time, it wasn’t.

A federal prisoner and his girlfriend have been charged with running a taxi service for minimum security jailbirds in Atlanta, driving them to buy booze, smokes and other contraband before returning them to jail.

Prosecutors say Deldrick Jackson, who is serving time in the Atlanta penitentiary on a cocaine and money laundering rap, and his girlfriend, Kelly Bass, collected $4,000 over six months for shuttling inmates out of the minimum security prison camp through a hole in the fence.

Bass, 38, would sit outside the prison fence in her Acura SUV and would sometimes drive prisoners to go shopping, or to a local hotel, or would just hand them the contraband goods they had asked for, according to court documents.

Among the items they would sneak in included bottles of alcohol, cigarettes and cigars, mobile phones and even nail clippers, prosecutors said.

In January, prison officials installed cameras near the holes in the fence and captured footage of Bass picking Jackson, 41, and other prisoners up and then returning them hours later.

In April, officials stopped Bass’ vehicle after a pickup and arrested her and Jackson. A search of the car turned up two cell phones, a box filled with packs of cigarettes, and several bottles of alcohol, prosecutors said.

The pair were charged with escaping from a federal prison  and assisting others to escape.

Federal officials said the scheme underscored the “very clearly the problems at the federal camp of the U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta but also the efforts underway by the FBI, working with the Atlanta Police and its other law enforcement partners, to remedy the matter.”

 

Trio of Heroin Addicts Busted in Machete-Point Ice Cream Shop Robbery Spree

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Shane Cashmore, (l), Juliana Pantaleone and Paul Drab

HUNTINGTON STATION, New York — Three machete-wielding thieves have been arrested for a string of ice cream parlor robberies they allegedly perpetrated to feed their heroin addictions, authorities said.

Police finally were able to track the trio down following a three-month spree in which 18 shops were robbed across two counties on Long Island, to fuel their drug habits.

“They were using the proceeds of the robberies to fuel their heroin addiction,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said at a joint press conference with Nassau County officials.

One of the three thieves, Juliana Pantaleone, 31, of Levittown, was caught shooting up inside their getaway vehicle when cops arrested her and the others after they had robbed a Carvel ice cream shop in Huntington Station on Monday.

The alleged ringleader, Shane Cashmore, 30, and Paul Drab, 26, both of Levittown, were also arrested.

“I’m sorry,” Cashmore said as he was led from the station house on Tuesday. “I am a heroin addict.”

Cops caught up to the trio after identifying the unusual model car they used as a getaway vehicle, a 2006 Hyundai Tiburon. Only 200 such cars are registered in the region near where the robberies took place.

“There was some video of the car, and through old-fashioned police work, we were able to find a car (matching) the one on the video,” Sini said.

 

Dope Asks Cops to Send Police Dog to Help Find His Heroin

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BATH TOWNSHIP, Ohio — This is your brain on drugs.

A drug-addled dope made life easy for cops in Ohio when he called 911 and asked them to send a police dog to help him find some heroin he believed had been stolen from him.

“Dispatchers take all type of calls. This is one of the most bizarre that I’ve heard,” Bath Township Police Chief Mike McNeely told WEWS-TV.

The January call began harmlessly enough, but quickly took an odd turn when a distraught-sounding Joseph Murphy began asking for a police dog.

“You need a police dog?” the operator asked. “What’s going on there?”

“She stole heroin from me,” Murphy replied.

The 20-year-old seemed clueless about why this was a problem even after cops showed up and began quizzing him about the dope.

Police body camera footage shows Murphy explaining that a woman stole money from him, but when officers press him about the drugs he accused the woman of stealing on the 911 call, Murphy responded: “I believe she did, but she won’t admit to me.”

Cops say Murphy pulled a “brown waxy substance” from his pants and he was arrested.

Murphy made headlines earlier this year when he allegedly urinated on a police officer in Florida while being arrested for causing a disturbance at Disney World.