Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Georgia Teens Guilty of Disfiguring and Raping Inmate’s Ex For Cash

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The gang attacked the ex of a prisoner, Jose Santos Carranza-Castro (bottom right) for cash

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia — A pair of vicious teens agreed to “disfigure,” and rape the ex-girlfriend of a man in prison in exchange for money paid by a man in prison.

One of the attackers, Josue Ramirez-Aguilar, now 20, pleaded guilty last week, along with two women who served as a driver and a lookout. A second man, Francisco Joshua Palencia, was convicted by a jury on Thursday.

The jailbird behind the attack, Jose Carranza-Castro, 38, also pleaded guilty last week.

Carranza-Castro first tasked Ramirez-Aguilar with the attack in April 2017, offering him cash to “permanently disfigure the victim with acid or boiling water” and assault her, according to prosecutors.

Ramirez-Aguilar agreed to do it and recruited Palencia to help. They both got their girlfriends, Ana Lopez-Huinil, 17, and Angela Garcia, 19, to help.

After three weeks of planning, in which they discussed cutting the victim’s face, “beating her and disfiguring her with boiling water,” the pack struck.

At first, they tried to barge in on the woman in ay 2017, but failed, pounding on her door while she was home with her boyfriend, but fleeing when she called the cops.

But days later,  when she arrived home at 3 a.m.. with her two sons, a toddler and an infant, she found two masked men in her kitchen with two pots of water boiling on the stove.

As she tried to run, one of the intruders threw boiling water on her, causing second-degree burns on her neck, shoulder, back and side.

They then shocked the woman with stun guns, dragged her into her bedroom, where they made her perform oral sex and raped her, as her 3-year-old son sat on the bed crying,  the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The infant remained in a portable car seat in another room as the assault occurred.

The men then fled with a TV, jewelry, shoes, a purse and a stun gun stolen from the apartment. Prosecutors said the men got in by cutting a screened-in porch, which allowed a 2-month-old German Shepherd puppy to escape. The dog was never found.

Investigators managed to identify Ramirez-Aguilar, through fingerprints her left on the pots used to boil the water. He confessed after being arrested, and identified Palencia, Lopez-Huinil, Garcia and Carranza-Castro as co-conspirators.

The two attackers admitted to beating, shocking and scalding the victim, but blamed each other for the sexual assault.

Palencia was sentenced to life plus 111 years in prison. Ramirez-Aguilar was sentenced to life. Carranza-Castro was sentenced to life in prison. Garcia and Lopez-Huinil were both sentenced to 30 years.

Brutal Rapist Caught When Victim Spots Him at Atlanta Train Station 6 Years After Attack

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Rapist Antonio White walked free for six years before his victim spotted him on a subway platform

ATLANTA — He had a face she would never forget.

A vicious rapist was sent to prison for the rest of his life after a victim he had attacked six years earlier spotted him on a subway platform in Atlanta and alerted police.

Prosecutors say the woman began screaming when she laid eyes on Antonio White, 54, in October 2013, drawing the attention of transit police, who placed him under arrest.

Six years earlier, White had raped the woman at gunpoint as she walked home from another subway station and he offered her a ride. The woman, who knew White from when they used to live in the same housing complex, took him up on his offer, but he then drove her to an abandoned house.

Prosecutors say the victim was trapped inside the car because the door handle and button to control the window were missing. She eventually managed to get out and run, but White chased her with a gun and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back inside the car where he raped her, authorities said.

During the attack, White said to the victim: “Shut up that screaming, bitch, or I’ll kill you.”

While the woman told relatives and friends what had happened, prosecutors say she never reported the attack to police, as she didn’t know White’s real name and believed nothing would come of the case.

But when White was arrested, cops quickly discovered he had sexually assaulted several other women in the housing complex where he had lived between 1983 and 2008. In several cases, he would approach the women on foot and assault them in wooded areas.

White had one prior rape conviction, a robbery conviction, and he previously pleaded guilty to sexual battery. For the 2007 attack, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

 

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.

Georgia Man Blames Sleepwalking in Rape of Son’s Girlfriend

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Ricardo Cole claims he doesn’t remember climbing into bed with his son’s girlfriend because he was sleepwalking

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia — He’s not going to sleep so well in jail.

A Georgia man has been charged with rape for climbing into bed with his son’s girlfriend and trying to have sex with her, but claims he was sleepwalking and doesn’t remember a thing.

According to the police report, the victim was lying in bed at Ricardo Arturo Cole, Sr.’s home in Lawrenceville, when “she felt someone get into bed behind her,” the Gwinnett Daily Post reported.

“(She) said she thought it was her boyfriend,” the report said. “(She) said the person then rolled down her pants and underwear” and tried to have sex with her, though there was no penetration.

“(The victim) said she turned around and realized that the male was not (her boyfriend), but was his father, Rick,” the report said. “(She) said she pushed Rick away and asked what he was doing. (She) said Rick apologized and said he was sleepwalking.”

Cole then left the room.

The incident occurred on April 8, but the victim told cops that she thought her boyfriend would be upset if she went to the police, so she didn’t report it right away. She later decided to go to police in May.

The victim said she broke off contact with the boyfriend and his father following the incident.

Cole has been charged with rape and was held without bond.

 

Thief Makes Off With $100,000 Worth of Ramen Noodles in Truck Heist

By HardBoiledNews Staff

It’s possible the thief made off with 300,000 packs of ramen

FAYETTEVILLE, Georgia — Go big, or go hungry.

Cops in Georgia are hunting a crook who drove off with a tractor trailer stuffed with more than $100,000 worth of ramen noodle packs.

The Fayette County Sheriff’s office says the owner of the truck had left it on the grounds of a friend’s Chevron gas station for about a week in late July, but when he returned the trailer was gone.

Police didn’t specify the brand of ramen the truck was carrying, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But a packet of  the freeze-dried noodles can be as cheap as 30 cents (or even less if bought in bulk), so the 53-foot trailer could conceivably have been carrying over 300,000 packs.

Cops think the theft may have been part of a string of car break-ins and a motorcycle heist in the area around the same time.

Cruel Crook Tells Mom ‘Spare Me the Sob Story’ as He Steals Cash For Baby Shower Cake

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Antonio Ivey wanted coke, not cake

MACON, Georgia — A heartless thief was sentenced to 15 years for a robbery spree in which he told a woman shopping for a baby shower cake to “spare me the sob story” when she begged him to let her keep some cash to buy it.

Prosecutors say Antonio Dewayne Ivey Sr., 33, whipped out a gun as he walked up to Laquesta Mitchell in a Walmart parking lot in Macon, Georgia last July and demanded cash.

Mitchell offered to hand over her bank cards, but Ivey insisted she give up her cash, prosecutors said.

“She told him that the money he was taking was for her daughter’s cake,” prosecutor Nancy Scott Malcor said at Ivey’s sentencing, according to the Macon Telegraph. “The defendant said, ‘Spare me the sob story.’ “

Authorities said Ivey, who was hunting for cash to fuel his cocaine habit, then went on to steal another woman’s purse in a parking lot of a  Kroger. He then stuck up the Advance Auto Parts store.

In court on Monday, Ivey apologized to the victims and said the gun he used was a pellet pistol. He pleaded guilty to the three robberies and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

 

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.

Topless Shoplifter Sparks Manhunt, Manages to Evade Police

By HardBoiledNews Staff

The skin went flying when employees at a Walmart spotted the topless woman stealing clothes

ATHENS, Georgia — What a boob!

A topless shoplifter at a Georgia Walmart proved harder to identify than cops thought, sparking a wide search that ended when the woman got away.

“Units are responding to a report of a topless female shoplifter running from Walmart. No further description was given, but we presume she’ll be the only topless woman running down Epps Bridge Road,” the Oconee County Sheriff’s office wrote on its Facebook page.

The white female, who was in her early 20s, was spotted by a loss prevention officer  inside the store, pulling off her shirt and bra in the women’s section. She then put on a shirt she yanked off the rack and a pair of shorts, which she slid over another pair she was already wearing, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Store employees confronted her as she tried to leave, kicking off a struggle during which she pulled off her shirt, kicked off her sandals, and fled barefoot and without a shirt in the direction of the nearby Kohl’s store, deputies said. She still had on the pair of stolen shorts.

Cops searched the area, but were unable to find the woman.

“The only description we had is she was topless. If she was in the area, we would have found her,” Sheriff Scott Berry said.

 

Georgia Cop Fired After Trying to Run Down Suspect With Patrol Car

By HardBoiledNews Staff

ATHENS, Georgia — A Georgia police department fired one of its officers after he drove his patrol car into a fleeing suspect, authorities said.

Officer Taylor Saulters was let go by the Athens-Clarke County Police Department after a review of his body cam showed how he attempted twice to knock the suspect down using his police car.

The episode began on June 1, when Saulters and his partner saw Timothy Patmon, who was wanted for probation violation. When he spotted the officers, Patmon fled, and Saulters began chasing him in his vehicle.

As Patmon veered left, the video showed Saulters speed up and try to cut him off, but bounce off a curb, flattening his front left tire, cops said.

Patmon then ran to the right, and Saulters hit the gas again and maneuvering the patrol car so that Patmon was knocked to the ground by the vehicle’s right front fender.

“Man, you hit me with your car!” Patmon then told Saulters, who asked if he was injured.

“I know what I did. Why’d you run?” Saulters replied.

Later, Saulters was recorded telling other officers that he “didn’t hit [Patmon] with the car, I blocked him with the car.”

Patmon requested medical treatment, and was later released with scrapes and bruises. He was then booked into Clarke County jail for violating his probation and obstructing a law enforcement officer.

Saulters was initially placed on administrative leave and later fired after an internal affairs investigation.

“This was not the kind of conduct we would expect from an Athens-Clarke County police officer,” Athens-Clarke police spokesman Epifanio Rodriguez told the Athens Banner-Herald.

 

Man Walks Out of Court Just Ahead of Murder Conviction, Remains on Loose

By HardBoiledNews Staff

Verlaine LaGuerre walked out of court just ahead of his guilty verdict and has not been seen since

ATLANTA — He got out in the nick of time.

A man on trial for murder managed to walk out of a court building and disappear just before he was found guilty of killing a man.

Verlaine LaGuerre, 26, remains on the lam after walking out of the Fulton County courthouse during the the lunch break last month, and not returning to hear the verdict in bis case.

LaGuerre had been on trial for the 2011 death of star football player, Matthew Hardeman,  who was shot more than 50 times.

Prosecutors said LaGuerre and Hardeman had exchanged “dirty looks” in front of Hardeman’s home and then got into a fist fight, prompting LaGuerre to later return with a pal and open fire with an assault rifle and a handgun.

Hardeman bullet-riddled, lifeless body was later found by his family in the front yard.

LaGuerre and his buddy, Prentice Baker, were sentenced to life in prison for the slaying.

Hardeman’s family told WAGA-TV that they fear that LaGuerre may come after them.