Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Cop Charged With Making Illegal Guns for Outlaw Biker Gangs

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Gregg Marinelli is charged with making guns to sell to biker gangs

PLATTEKILL, New York — A New York police officer has been charged with manufacturing dozens of illegal handguns and assault rifles and selling them to outlaw motorcycle gang members, authorities said.

Gregg Marinelli, 38, who is a sergeant with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police, is accused of making the guns — including at least one fully automatic assault rifle — in his Plattekill home.

He then allegedly sold them to people who are legally barred from possessing weapons because they had felony convictions, such as members of outlaw motorcycle groups.

Marinelli is accused of using his marked police car to sometimes deliver the guns, which had no serial numbers, making them hard to trace.

Authorities say the investigation into Marinelli arose out of a recent drug trafficking case, dubbed “Operation Bread, White and Blues,” which looked as cocaine and pain pill trafficking by members and associates of self-professed “outlaw” motorcycle clubs. During that probe, investigators learned that Marinelli alerted a suspect that he was a target.

Investigators recovered numerous guns, gun parts and tools used to manufacture weapons at Marinelli’s home. State Police have also recovered 13 handguns and assault rifles from others which were manufactured and sold by Marinelli.

He faces a slew of charges including criminal sale and criminal possession of a firearm and hindering prosecution. He is being held on $600,000 bond.

Woman Named Meth Jailed For Killing Prison Inmate With Meth

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Johna Martinez-Meth lived up to her name

FAIRFIELD, California — What’s in a name?

A woman whose last name is Meth has been sentenced to two years for smuggling meth into a prison, killing an inmate who died after swallowing balloons containing the drugs, authorities said.

Johna Martinez-Meth, 46, of Clearlake, California, had been accused of sneaking the drugs to an inmate at a prison medical facility in Vacaville in May 2018, prison officials said,

The scheme was uncovered when the inmate,  Adrian Sepulveda, 46, who was serving a life sentence for murder, died, An autopsy showed he had swallowed several balloons filled with methamphetamine, officials said.

When investigators realized that Martinez-Meth was the last person to visit Sepulveda, they got a search warrant for her house where they found more meth, balloons and glue. She was arrested and later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

“[The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] is committed to stopping the flow of drugs into our prisons,” said Bryan Shill, deputy chief of CDCR’s Office of Correctional Safety. “Our investigators will diligently pursue those who smuggle narcotics into any state correctional facility, and we will seek justice through aggressive prosecution of violators.”

 

Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Faces Life For Alleged Role in Violent Street Gang

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The 22-year-old rapper has openly boasted in his songs about his gang connections

NEW YORK — Platinum-selling rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has been charged with being part of a vicious street gang that pushed drugs and shot numerous people, including an innocent bystander at the Barclays Center earlier this year.

The 22-year-old rapper, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was one of five alleged members of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, a brutal Brooklyn street gang, charged in a federal racketeering indictment. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

At 6ix9ine’s arraignment, the judge deemed him a danger to the community and a flight risk and ordered him held without bail.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman noted that there was “troubling” evidence offered by prosecutors that showed that 6ix9ine directed or participated in multiple acts of violence over the last eight months.

“The defendant is quite violent,” prosecutor Michael Longyear said.

Longyear said 6ix9ine was captured on surveillance video sitting in a car and filming his co-defendants carry out a violent robbery against a rival gang member in Times Square.

6ix9ine also was caught on video boasting about shots recently fired by a co-defendant inside the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets, Longyear said.

The rapper’s lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, said his client had fired some of his co-defendants as part of his management and security team last week and was offered protection by federal agents on Saturday after some of them were overheard on wiretaps threatening his life. 6ix9ine refused the offer, Lazzaro said.

6ix9ine’s album “Day69: Graduation Day” was among the top records on iTunes following its February release. He is known for the multiplatinum hit “Fefe” with Nicki Minaj, which peaked at No. 3 on the pop charts, and “Stoopid,” featuring the incarcerated rapper Bobby Shmurda.

But 6ix9ine also has had a series of run-ins with law enforcement and has publicly identified himself as a member of the violent Bloods gang.

Prosecutors said the gang carried out acts of murder, robbery and narcotics trafficking in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn since at least 2013.

6ix9ine recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Brooklyn in connection with a May traffic stop.

In a 2015 case in New York, 6ix9ine was sentenced to probation for his involvement in a sexually explicit video of a 13-year-old girl.

The video, posted on social media, showed the girl performing a sex act on another man while 6ix9ine “stands behind the child making a thrusting motion with his pelvis and smacking her on her buttocks,” according to court documents.

 

NJ Shrink Busted for Paying Gangster to Disfigure Man Shaking Her Down

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The NJ shrink thought she was hiring a paid killer, but was stalking to an undercover FBI agent instead

CAMDEN, New Jersey (Nov. 8, 2018) — A screwy shrink has been busted for trying to hire a hitman to brutally beat a man who she said was shaking her down for cash, saying: “he needs his pretty little face bashed in.”

Diane Sylvia, 58, a mental health counselor in Linwood, New Jersey, began trying to arrange to attack in September, when she asked one of her patients — a former member of a violent gang — if he could help her kill someone, prosecutors said.

She said the man, who lives in Massachusetts, “had been bilking her for money over the years,” and she wanted him hurt, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The former gang member, however, contacted the FBI, who had him introduce Sylvia to an undercover agent acting as a hitman. She told the agent that she didn’t really want the target dead, but rather beaten and permanently disfigured.

“He needs his pretty little face bashed in, that’s what I really want,” she was quoted as saying. She later added that “a broken arm would help, too,” explaining that “all he has is, like, his big muscles and his cute face.”

She later repeated, “I really just want his face punched in, I swear to God. And his arm broken, that’s what I want.” When the undercover agent asked why Sylvia wanted to do this, she claimed the man “ended up with some stuff on me that he was gonna report me to the licensing board, which means I have no job.”

When asked how assaulting this man would help Sylvia, she replied, “It’s just gonna make me feel better” and “it’s the only way I can get him back.”

The agent then told her to get a pre-paid phone for them to further discuss the assault. In further meetings, at Sylvia’s officer, she said she wanted an attack, that would disfigure the target.

“Something that makes him not so cute,” she said, while making a slashing motion on her chee. “Something so he can’t do push-ups, so he can’t work out.”

Sylvia then agreed to pay the undercover agent $5,000 and she was arrested. She was charged with one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence, which carries a sentence of up to five years if she is convicted.

Heroin Dealer Connected to 27 Overdoses Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Karon Peoples admitted he’d communicated with 27 people who later suffered overdoses

BALTIMORE — A 24-year-old heroin dealer linked to 27 overdoses — nine of them fatal — has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Karon Elijah Peoples pleaded guilty in July to taking part in a drug ring that distributed between nine and 10 kilos of heroin in Baltimore from 2015 until early this year, federal prosecutors said.

Investigators began investigating Peoples in late 2017 after learning that he was supplying significant quantities of heroin to customers throughout Maryland.

Undercover officers bought drugs from Peoples on several occasions and a subsequent raid of his stash house in December netted 900 grams of heroin; $405,000 in cash, a money counter and digital scales. Officers also recovered 68 grams of heroin from his car.

As part of the haul, investigators discovered 49 cell phones that Peoples and his crew had been using. A search of the phones’ records revealed that Peoples had been contacted by 27 people who later suffered overdoses. Nine of those people died.

The victims hailed from Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, prosecutors said.

Investigators were unable to prove that Peoples had sold the people the drugs on which they overdosed, so he only pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin. Peoples was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison.

“Heroin dealers like Karon Peoples sell death and despair.  Heroin is one of the leading causes of death in Maryland—and many victims are teenagers,” said Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur.  “We will continue to work with our local, state, and federal partners to attack this problem from all sides to reduce overdose deaths.

 

Women Charged With Selling Marijuana Edibles at Georgia Church

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Cops say the women were selling edible marijuana baked goods, puddings and cereal bars

SAVANNAH, Georgia — Holy smokes!

Two women were arrested after undercover narcotics agents caught them openly selling marijuana edibles at a Georgia church, officials said.

Ebony Cooper, 28, and Leah Presley, 26, were busted after the event for entrepreneurs at the church in Savannah, where Cooper had been selling baked goods, puddings and other treats laced with marijuana.

When agents with the Chatham-Savannah Counter Narcotics Team spotted the sale, they purchased several items from Cooper. They then followed her after she left and eventually pulled her and Presley over and searched their vehicle.

Inside, officers found a large amount of pot edibles plus $1,000 in cash and a loaded handgun, cops said.

Both women face felony drug charges, although cops say Presley didn’t appear to be involved in the sale at the church event. Officers also determined that Cooper had been actively hawking her wares online as well.

Leah Presley (L) and Ebony Cooper

Police say the event at the church was run by an outside vendor, and that church officials appeared to have no knowledge of the drug dealing. The other vendors at the event all appeared to be involved in legal businesses, cops say.

Authorities Discover Crack Pipe Vending Machines Installed in Public Places

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Officials found three such vending machines seling crack pipes

CORAM, New York — Officials seized three vending machines that purported to be selling pens but actually dispensed carefully disguised crack pipes.

The blue-and-white dispensers mysteriously appeared outside a housing complex, a Home Depot and shopping mall on Long Island.

But while the machines offered “pens” for $2, a close inspection of what came out revealed a hidden glass tube and set of filters — a virtual crack pipe kit.

Authorities were alerted to the machines after residents grew angry and, in one case, smashed one of them open with a sledgehammer.

“There are some people who think they’re going to make some money out of this and prey on a community and promote drug use in a community,” Brookhaven Town supervisor Ed Romaine said at a news conference. “They’re going to be sadly mistaken.”

Officials pulled up three machines over the weekend on the grounds that they violated local codes against alerting public property.

While three machines have been located, officials said they couldn’t be certain there weren’t others and asked the public to report any more that they had seen.

 

Cops Discover Police Arsenal Has Been Secretly Replaced with Toy Guns

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Cops only realized their guns were missing when they started showing up on the black market

CAPIATA, Paraguay — Talk about stealing someone’s thunder.

Police in Paraguay discovered that a cache of their weapons had been stolen and replaced with plastic toy guns.

An inspection of the department’s armory revealed that at least 42 FN-FAL battle rifles had gone missing, the BBC reported.

The probe was triggered after cops realized that their rifles had fallen into criminal hands.

The weapons had been stashed in the armory in the city of Capiata as the department was in the process of upgrading its officers weapons.

Authorities believe the guns are likely destined for the black markets in Argentina, Brazil and beyond.

Fugitive Eco-Terrorist Nabbed In Cuba After 12 Years On the Run

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Fugitive Joseph Mahmoud Dibee was last seen in the U.S. in 2005.

PORTLAND, Oregon  — One of the last remaining fugitive members of a dangerous eco-terrorist group behind a string of arson fires that caused millions of dollars in damage has been caught after more than a decade on the lam, the FBI said.

Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, 50, was apprehended after investigators got a tip he was traveling through Central America on his way to Russia with a planned stop in Cuba, according to court documents.

With the help of Cuban authorities, Dibee was arrested there before boarding a plane bound for Moscow and was then sent back to the United States to face justice.

Dibee was a member of “The Family,” a notorious band of environmental radicals who set more than 40 arson fires at development sites in the Western United States between1995 and 2001. The fires caused more than $45 million in damages, with a 1998 arson attack on a ski resort in Vail, Colorado its most brazen act. That blaze caused $26 million in damages.

A fire set by The Family at a Vail, Colorado ski resort in 1998

Dibee fled the U.S. in December 2005. The following year, he was indicted along with 11 co-conspirators and has been on the run since.

“The crimes they committed were serious and dangerous,” said Special Agent Tim Suttles, who has been working on the investigation since 2004. “Just because time passes doesn’t mean the FBI forgets. We are very gratified to have Dibee in custody.”

Dibee’s capture leaves one fugitive from the group still at large. Josephine Sunshine Overaker, a U.S. citizen believed to be either 43 or 46 years old, fled to Europe in late 2001 and hasn’t been seen since.

“She’s the last one,” Suttles said, explaining that Overaker faces 19 felony counts in Oregon, Colorado, and Washington State. “We will continue to pursue her and to run down every lead that comes to us. We’re not going to give up just because time has passed.”

Georgia Sheriff in Hot Water for Buying $70K Muscle Car With Federal Grant

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The Gwinnett County sheriff bought this $70K muscle car with cash it got from a federal grant

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia — The U.S. justice department is demanding tis money back from a Georgia sheriff who used a government grant to buy a $70,000 muscle car that he uses to drive to and from work.

In a letter to Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway  the DOJ characterized the purchase of a Dodge Charger Hellcat — a 707-horsepower muscle car that some have called the fastest sedan ever built — as “extravagant.”

The purchase of the vehicle, which was paid for with federal asset forfeiture funds, was initially approved, but now the feds are questioning if the Hellcat is being used for what the department said they planned to use it for.

Conway stands behind the purchase.

“Sheriff Conway maintains that this vehicle is an appropriate purchase, especially for an agency with a $92 million budget and the opportunity this vehicle provides in making our roadways safer,” Deputy Shannon Volkodav, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The initial application said the car could  be used for a program that stages drag races in controlled environments to educate drivers about the dangers of illegal street racing. The department also said the car could be sued to undercover and covert operations.

But the DOJ questioned the car was a legitimate purchase.

“The vehicle in question is a high-performance vehicle not typically purchased as part of a traditional fleet of law enforcement vehicles,” the department wrote in a letter to the sheriff.

The sheriff’s office defended the claim, saying he sheriff also used it “when he participates in field operations, covert and otherwise, with our deputies.