Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Serial Arsonist Nabbed in N. Mexico Church Blaze

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Gordon Schuler apparently has a thing for fire

RIO RANCHO, New Mexico — A serial arsonist has been nabbed for allegedly trying to burn down a New Mexico church just a week after being let loose from jail, authorities said.

Gordon Schuler, 23, has been charged with setting fire to the Peace Lutheran Church in Rio Rancho in the early hours of July 31. Fortunately, a fire crew leaving a nearby hospital, spotted the smoke and were able to snap into action quickly.

Officials say that likely saved the building, but the interior of the church was very badly damaged, prosecutors said.

Police immediately suspected Schuler, a known firebug who had just been released on probation on July 25 on charges related to two arson fires last year.

Authorities say Schuler has been eyed in up to 10 arson fires in the Rio Rancho area but hasn;t been charged in all of them due to lack of sufficient evidence.

An investigation revealed that a video surveillance camera from a nearby business captured footage of Schuler carrying a backpack and hammer the night of the fire. A backpack and hammer were recovered in the ashes of the fire.

Schuler has been charged with using fire to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce, as the church sends more than 2% of its revenue to a central Lutheran church in Wisconsin.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Lawyer in Biggest Social Security Scam in History May Have Fled to Mexico

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Eric Conn’s ads dotted the Kentucky landscape

LEXINGTON, Kentucky — A disability lawyer who went on the lam after being convicted of stealing over half a billion dollars in the biggest Social Security scam in history has been sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay back $170 million.

Authorities say Eric Conn, who was held under home detention in Kentucky after his conviction in March, in snipped off his electronic monitoring anklet on June 2 and went on the run.

The FBI says it has tracked Conn to New Mexico where he has been spotted buying gas and shopping at Walmart.  They say Conn fled using a truck owned by a friend who had registered it to a dummy corporation in Montana.

The truck has been recovered in New Mexico near the Mexico border, although officials say they have no evidence Conn had fled into Mexico.

“The negative impact of Conn’s presence in our community will be felt for generations,” said FBI agent Amy Hess. “His flight from prosecution has diminished any legitimacy and integrity he once held as an attorney and officer of the court.”

The FBI has tracked Eric Conn as far as New Mexico where he was spotted shopping in Walmart

Conn, 56, was a well known figure in Kentucky with ads appearing on TV nonstop and ambulance chasing billboards dotting the landscape. He earned millions by representing thousands of clients pressing for disability claims from Social Security. But it was all a fraud, prosecutors said. In all, they say he defrauded the government out of $550 million.

Con was also seen shopping in a New Mexico Walmart

Conn admitted he had routinely presented false evidence of disabilities, paid unscrupulous doctors to rubber stamp forms and even bribed a Social Security judge who approved thousands of claims for Conn’s clients in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A second judge has admitted retaliating against a whistleblower who tried to blow the lid off Conn’s sleazy dealings with the judge. Both judges are awaiting sentencing.

At his sentencing, Judge Danny Reeves gave Conn the maximum jail term allowed by law, but acknowledged that 12 years didn’t fit the crime.

“It did hurt the entire system and the reverberations are still occurring,” Reeves said, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.

Serial Pooper Drives Optometrist in Roswell, N.M. Out of Business

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ROSWELL, New Mexico — It may be in Roswell, but the origin of this situation is most definitely not extraterrestrial.

A local optometrist says he is closing up shop after more than 80 years in business due to a serial pooper who has been defecating on his front steps for years.

Dr. Ken Leadingham blames a homeless man who has been sleeping in the bushes outside his shop.

“It’s been three or four years,” Leadingham told the Roswell Daily Record. “Everybody locally here knows the guy. He usually sits out in the yard. He’ll go pick up some beers and he’ll come and sleep in these bushes.”

Leadingham says he has reported the situation to the local police but they have been unable to act because there hasn’t been sufficient evidence to arrest the man. Police acknowledge having records of the complaints but confirmed they didn’t have enough evidence to do anything.

The optometrist says he was advised to install security cameras, but that the homeless  man destroyed them.

“We had put up [auth] security cameras which were torn down. We had put up a security light which he had torn down,” he said.

Leadingham said that after the latest episode, he had had enough.

“We tried to stay in business until this summer and through September so we can take care of the children, but after this incident we decided to go ahead and close the practice,” he said.

Ex-N. Mexico GOP Head Has Gun Stolen From Unlocked Car 4 Separate Times

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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Here’s a guy who may want to reconsider his position on gun control — at least when it comes to his own guns.

The former head of New Mexico’s Republican party had a gun stolen from his car on four separate occasions by the same thief because he repeatedly left the doors unlocked.

Allen Weh reported that four different Smith & Wesson 9mm handguns he had placed under the seat of his BMW SUV as he went to work at CSI Aviation in Albuquerque disappeared from the parking lot over the course of three months late last year.

Allen Weh

“Some of it was my own stupidity. I left my car unlocked. I should have locked it,” Weh, a retired Marine colonel told KOB-TV. “But what really bothers me is the criminal activity in this community that’s gone on and allowed to take place by judges. It’s got to end.”

The first episode occurred on Sept. 19 and it happened again on Sept. 22, Oct. 13  and Nov. 16, Albuquerque police said.

After the third burglary, Weh’s company, where he is chief executive, installed surveillance cameras in the parking lot.

During the fourth episode, Weh said he spotted a suspicious-looking man lurking around the parking lot and when he made a bee-line for his car, Weh confronted him. Weh told cops the man then opened the door to his car, pulled out the gun and brandished it at him before making his way to his getaway car.

When police were finally able to view the surveillance tape, which had been delayed because of technical problems, investigators immediately recognized 19-year-old Daniel Sandoval, a known local gang member.

Daniel Sandoval

When he was arrested, he admitted to stealing the four guns although he denied threatening Weh with his gun on the fourth occasion, cops said. Sandoval is one of two men charged with the murder of a deacon who was dragged by his own van after he tried to stop the two suspects from stealing it.

Weh chaired the Republican Party of New Mexico from 2004 to 2008. He ran in the Republican primary race for governor in 2010 but lost and in 2014, he won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate but lost to Democratic incumbent Tom Udall.

A firm supporter of gun rights, Weh said the thefts have done nothing to change his position.

“I’m a believer in not letting felons have access to weapons. But if they’ll come steal from me, they’ll come break in your car. They’re going to find a way to get a weapon,” he said.