Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

Drama Teacher Accused of Molestation Found Dead Just Before Closing Arguments

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David Michael Bruce is suspected of committing suicide just ahead of closing arguments in his molestation case

ANAHEIM, California — A retired junior high school drama teacher on trial for allegedly molesting his students was found dead in his home of an apparent suicide just before closing arguments in his case were set to begin.

David Michael Bruce, 68, was found dead after failing to appear in court in southern California as his case was winding to a close, authorities said.

Police said they suspected a suicide, but the official cause of death remained pending. Bruce had faced up to life in prison if he had been convicted.

Bruce was accused of molesting students over the course of 15 years at Sycamore Junior High in Anaheim. Prosecutors said Bruce would typically begin with massages before escalating the molestation.

“He would tell them he had Hollywood connections” and could help them get jobs in the film industry, Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer said in his opening statement of the trial, according to the Orange County Register.

“The defendant basically has an obsession with male buttocks,” he said, noting that the allegations included “a lot of rubbing, touching and spanking the buttocks of these victims.”

Police also allegedly found erotic photos of young boys in the teacher’s residence.

One of the boys was a special education student who would “hang out” with his teacher at lunch, according to the prosecutor, who said the educator gave the boy gifts such as an iPod and skateboard.

One of the alleged victims confided in his sister, “who actually is the reason this whole investigation got started,” Zimmer said. A custodian at the school reported he “walked in on the defendant massaging a student.”

Bruce’s attorney had argued his client’s accusers had histories of psychiatric issues and dishonesty and were hoping to cash in on lawsuits.

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Pervy Pol and Gal Pal Charged With Filming Woman After Spiking Drink

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Larry Weinstein and Kelly Drucker called filming a passed out drunk woman their ‘mission’

NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania — A former town supervisor and his gal pal have been charged with plotting to use spy glasses and a web camera to film a heavily intoxicated woman they had plied with booze, prosecutors said.

Lawrence Jay Weinstein, 44, and Kelly Drucker, 45, plotted last year to spike the victim’s drink with high-proof hooch so she couldn’t drive home, so they could bring her back to Drucker’s house where a webcam was hidden in the bathroom.

“Don’t let her go to the bathroom until she gets back to your place,” Weinstein wrote in a text message to appears to Drucker.

The couple began planning what they called their “mission,” in late October 2017, which led Drucker to have dinner with the victim at a Mexican restaurant  the following month. During the meal, Drucker encouraged the woman to drink heavily.

Weinstein, a lawyer who resigned as a Northampton Township Supervisor last month, was not at the dinner, but kept in communication with Drucker throughout the night via text message, coaching her to convince the victim to come back to Drucker’s home, the complaint said.

“Keep sober so you can make it happen and aren’t too drunk to win,” Weinstein’s texts said, according to prosecutors.

When Drucker got the woman back to her house, Weinstein bombarded her with messages about keeping her there and asking her sexually-charged questions as Drucker gave her more to drink.

The woman eventually got sick and passed out in a bathroom, prompting Weinstein to urge Drucker to use the spy glasses to take photos of the victim.

“Don’t worry about her. Get glasses on now,” the texts read. “Get her naked and get [sic] door open.”

Weinstein later told cops he was “concerned” for the victim, and was not sure if he should call an ambulance, according to court papers.

A few days later, Weinstein and Drucker discussed by text plans for a future “mission,” which police believe meant finding additional victims.

The victim told cops, she remembered little from the evening, although she did recall going to dinner and noticing  her wine “didn’t taste right,” and that she was “so sick” the following morning. She told detectives she does not recall the rest of the night after commenting on the wine.

During their investigation, detectives recovered photos of the victim taken while she was in the bathroom at Drucker’s home. The investigation began after a man in August discovered illicit messages on a phone that once belonged to Drucker.

Detectives say they found photos on an iPad showing Weinstein sexually assaulting a woman in late 2012 while she was unconscious. That victim told police she was not aware of the incident and did not consent to Weinstein touching her or taking the photos.

Both Weinstein and Drucker are being held on $300,000 bond.

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Wannabe Cop Gets 10 Years for San Diego Church and School Arson Fires

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The arson caused over $1.5 million damages to the church and neighboring school

SAN DIEGO — A wannabe cop who lived a secret life as a firebug has been sentenced to 10 years for a string of late night arson fires at a southern California church and middle school.

Tyler Carender, 22, admitted sparking three separate fires over 21 days at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Oak Crest Middle School in Encinitas in 2016.

A student of criminal justice at Palomar College in San Marcos, Carender was caught after he admitted to a classmate — who was also studying to be a cop — that he was behind the arson fires.

The first blaze broke out on Oct. 22, 0216 at the Friendship House” Counseling and Youth Center building at the Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Firefighters were able to contain the fire, which still caused approximately $200,000 in damage, federal prosecutors said.

A week later, he also set fire to the administrative building at the Oak Street Middle School next to his house, by breaking in and using gasoline to set fire to books and files within the building.

Making matters worse, firefighters were forced to retreat from the building after the roof appeared like it might collapse. In all, prosecutors say the fire destroyed student records and caused $1.5 million in damages.

Two weeks later, Carender went back to St. Andrew’s  and threw a Molotov cocktail into the office of the church’s preschool, causing $25,000 in damages.

The San Diego sheriff’s office were led at first to Carender after detectives received an anonymous tip. Later,  Carender confided in a classmate about committing the three arsons. The classmate ultimately recorded Carender discussing his involvement and contacted authorities.

Following his arrest, Carender initially denied any involvement, but later admitted he had started the fires, cops say.

Carender was arrested in July 2017 at his home and pleaded guilty on March 9, 2018 to all three charges.

 

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Reality Show Doctor and Gal Pal Charged With Drugging and Raping Women

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Reality show doc, Grant Robicheaux, and girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, are accused of preying on women as a team

SANTA ANA, California — A telegenic reality show doctor and his striking girlfriend have been charged with drugging and sexually assaulting two women, and authorities fear  there could be many more victims.

Investigators have found “thousands and thousands of videos” on orthopedic surgeon Grant Robicheaux’s phone, many of which show him and girlfriend Cerissa Riley engaged in sex acts with other women.

Some videos show women who “appear to be highly intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist, and they’re barely responsive to the defendant’s sexual advances. Based on this evidence, we believe that there might be many unidentified victims out there,” Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

Robicheaux, 38, had appeared in a short-lived Bravo TV show called “Online Dating Rituals of the American Male,” in 2014.

“We believe the defendants used their good looks and charm to lower the inhibitions of their potential prey,” Rackauckas said, releasing an array of information about many locations and events where Robicheaux and the 31-year-old Riley had traveled.

So far, two women have filed charges after being allegedly assaulted by the couple after meeting them at social events.

“We tend to trust doctors who take an oath to do no harm. The second defendant, being a female, is key. A woman purporting to be his girlfriend clearly played a significant role in disarming the victims, making them feel comfortable and safe,” Rackauckas said.

Cerissa Riley and Grant Robicheaux at an event where they may have hunted for prey

The couple have been released on $100,000 bond and their attorneys say their clients deny the charges.

“All allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley,” the lawyers said in a statement. “They have been aware of these accusations for a number of months, and each of them will formally deny the truth of these allegations at their first opportunity in court.”

According to prosecutors, Robicheaux and Riley met a 32-year-old woman at a Newport Beach restaurant on April 10, 2016, invited her to a party and then escorted her to Robicheaux’s apartment when she was intoxicated.

The pair allegedly gave the victim multiple drugs and then sexually assaulted her while she was incapable of resisting. The woman called police the next day, and a forensic exam found multiple controlled substances.

On Oct. 2, 2016, the defendants allegedly drank alcohol with another woman at a Newport Beach bar until she was unconscious, brought her to Robicheaux’s apartment and sexually assaulted her.

The district attorney’s office said the victim awakened and screamed for help until a neighbor called police, who began an investigation.

Prosecutors say that cops also found large amounts of illegal drugs, two illegal, unregistered assault rifles, four other firearms and several large-capacity magazines at Robicheaux’s home.

They noted that the couple may have traveled to  events like the Burning Man festival in Nevada, the Dirtybird Campout festival in Silverado, California, the Splash House festival in Palm Springs, and landmarks near Page, Arizona, and fear that additional victims could have been attacked at these events.

Robicheaux studied at Louisiana State University and did postgraduate work at New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases and hs residency at the University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, California.

 

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‘Cool Dad’ Busted for Driving Son and Gal Pal to Park to ‘Do Their Thang’

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Dad Laurence Mitchell admitted he’d driven the kids to a park to have sex

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida — There is such a thing as being too cool of a dad.

A 53-year-old Florida father was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor when he drove his young son and his girlfriend to a park so they could have sex, or as dad put it:  “do their thang.”

Cops initially spotted Laurence Mitchell sitting in his idling car outside a Port St. Lucie park after hours. When they asked what he was doing there, Mitchell said he had driven the young couple there to “do what kids do.”

When asked why he would do that, Mitchell said: “Well, they aren’t out there stealing. They are just having sex.”

“They could be out there doing worse,” Mitchell said, according to the police report.

Cops then spotted the young couple and when questioned, they admitted they had been in the park, “just smoking and f—ing.”

Police say Mitchell acknowledged that he had not gotten permission from the girl’s family to take her to the park for sex.

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Man Charged With Rubbing Fruit on His Butt in Virginia Supermarket

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Michael Dwayne Johnson apparently got his kicks by rubbing fruit on his ass

MANASSAS, Virginia — Call it a case of ass-ault.

A man has been charged with picking up fruit at a Virginia supermarket, rubbing it on his buttocks and then putting it back on the shelves.

Manassas police say staff at the Giant Food market had to destroy “several pallets” of produce after spying Michael Dwayne Johnson, 27, pull down his pants and defile the food on Saturday.

He was charged with destruction of property and indecent exposure.

Cops say they don’t believe the episode was mental health-related and that Johnson did it because he thought it was funny.

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Sick Fetishist Fakes Down Syndrome to Have Caregivers Change His Diapers

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Sicko Paul Anthony Menchaca allegedly got aroused when his nurses changed his diapers

GILBERT, Arizona — A twisted weirdo with a strange sexual fetish pretended to have Down syndrome in order to hire caregivers to bathe him and change his diapers, authorities said.

Several of the women told police that Paul Anthony Menchaca, 30, would grow aroused as they washed his genitals and would then “aggressively” insist they hadn’t cleaned him properly and needed to do it again, police said.

Mechaca is believed to have posed as a woman named Amy who posted on the caregiver site CareLinx.com, seeking someone to help take care of her son with Down syndrome in Gilbert, Arizona, KTVK-TV reported.

One caregiver told police she provided  help with bathing and diaper changes on 30 separate occasions at places in Gilbert and Chandler, but not at Menchaca’s home.

In all, three women were hired by Amy, who only communicated with them via text, sometimes giving specific instructions.

“’Amy’ asked all three victims to ‘punish’ [Menchaca] when he soiled his diaper by putting him in timeout and taking away his privileges,” according to the probable cause statement. “All three victims were paid in cash by [Menchaca] when they picked him up and dropped him off from neutral locations.”

Police later determined that the number Amy texted from was Menchaca’s.

Eventually, one of the caregivers grew suspicious and followed him from where she had dropped him off to his home.

“[The victim] was greeted by [Menchaca’s] actual mother and father and discovered [Menchaca] did not have Down syndrome and did not require diaper changes,” the statement read.

Police say Menchaca “admitted to lying to them about his mental condition” when the three caregivers confronted him.

At his first court hearing, Menchaca told the judge: “I just want to let you know I am special needs. I do have a low IQ level. And … my mom and dad both have paperwork to prove that. And I’m starting to talk to my dad about getting me some help and getting me into a counselor and probably like a rehab center to talk to somebody.”

Menchaca, who has no criminal history, was released on $15,000 bond.

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Oklahoma Zookeeper and Gov. Candidate, ‘Joe Exotic,’ Busted in Murder-For-Hire Plot

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Joe Exotic kept more than 200 big cats at his roadside zoo in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — The operator of a roadside zoo who ran for governor in Oklahoma earlier this year, has been charged in a murder-for-hire plot for allegedly trying to hire people to bump off the owner of a big cat rescue group in Florida, federal prosecutors say.

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, 55, who is known as “Joe Exotic” runs the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park and has been accused by animal rights groups of mistreating the big cats he keeps there.

Prosecutors say he allegedly tried to hire two separate people to kill Carole Baskin,, CEO of BIg Cat Rescue in Tampa with whom he had been engaged in a dispute with for years. She wasn’t harmed.

Maldonado had threatened Baskin online in recent  years including a video of him shooting in the head a blow up doll dressed to look like her.

“Maldonado ran, in our view, one of the most notorious cub petting roadside zoos in the country,” Baskin said.  “Years ago he also operated a traveling exhibit that would bring cubs to malls throughout the Midwest and Southwest. When Big Cat Rescue educated the malls about the miserable life this created for the cubs and the malls started cancelling Maldonado’s traveling exhibit, Maldonado retaliated by renaming his traveling show “Big Cat Rescue Entertainment” in order to confuse the public into thinking the show was operated by Big Cat Rescue.”

“In 2011, Big Cat Rescue sued for violations of its intellectual property rights and in 2013 was granted a consent judgment for over $1 million. Litigation to collect on the judgment has been ongoing since then in Oklahoma,” she said.

According to the indictment, Maldonado-Passage gave an unnamed person $3,000 to travel from Oklahoma to Florida to kill Basin. He allegedly agreed to pay thousands more after the deed, officials say.

Maldonado-Passage also repeatedly asked a second person to kill Baskin in exchange for money. But that person ultimately put him in contact connected him with an undercover FBI agent, who met with Maldonado-Passage in December 2017.

Known for his blonde mullet and expletive-laden rants on YouTube, Maldonado-Passage finished third in a three-way Libertarian primary for Oklahoma governor in June.

In October 2017, Maldonado-Passage was investigated by police when his then-husband, 23-year-old Travis Maldonado, shot himself in the head in the zoo gift shop. Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes said at the time that witnesses reported Travis Maldonado put a loaded firearm to his head and pulled the trigger to prove the weapon would not fire with the magazine removed.

Maldonado married another man, Dillon Jacob Passage, in December.

 

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Paranormal Investigator Charged With Shooting at Ghost

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Christian Devaux thought he was shooting at a ghost

TOLLAND, Connecticut — He should have called the Ghostbusters on this one.

A Connecticut man who says he is a paranormal investigator has been charged with lying to  cops when he fired a gun at what he initially reported was a masked intruder but later admitted was a ghost.

Christian Devaux, 25,  called 911 early on the morning of July 26 to report that a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a mask and holding a rifle had broken into his home, according to the Manchester Journal Inquirer.

Dispatchers say they heard Devaux screaming “Hey!” on the phone and then firing two shots in an attempt to scare off the intruder, Connecticut state police said.

But crime scene investigators eventually discovered no evidence that Devaux’s house had been broken into. A police dog also failed to pick up a scent in the area, and a canvass of the street turned up nothing suspicious.

Also Devaux’s description of firing shots over the alleged intruder’s head, didn’t match ballistic evidence collected at the scene.

When pressed,  Devaux told troopers that “there are some things he just can’t explain, like seeing ghosts.”

Devaux then told state police that he has been a paranormal investigator for five or six years and that while he did not want to be considered “insane,” he said it was possible the intruder was a ghost.

When asked to clarify that no one had been in his house that morning and that he may have seen a ghost, Devaux replied, “It had to be,” police said.

In 2011, Devaux filed a similar report about a phantom home invader that turned out to be unfounded.

Devaux was released on $5,000 bond.

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Hulking Shoplifter Knocked Out by Passerby in Supermarket Parking Lot

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW1tmfo-whQ

SANTA ANA, California — Timber!

A menacing, 350-pound shoplifter met his match when a much smaller man knocked him out cold in the parking lot outside a store as the hulking thief tried to stuff purloined goods into his trunk.

The whole episode was caught on a cell phone camera as Jose Oscar Prado, 32, tried to walk out of a Stater Bros. supermarket in Santa Ana, California with a carton of food he hadn’t paid for, according to KTLA-TV.

As a number of employees confronted him, the towering Prado turned threatening, putting his hands up and challenging anyone to stop him.

As Prado’s gal pal shrieked at the employees to stop, a passerby sneaked up and leveled Prado with one punch.

Prado eventually got back to his feet and climbed into his truck with the woman and fled with the items, police said.

The altercation occurred in June, but Prado was arrested last week and held on $50,000 bond, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s office.

Authorities say they are looking to talk to the man who punched Prado as a possible witness.

 

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