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☆ A Mexico soccer icon entered politics. Prosecutors say narcos followed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Cuernavaca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +27 min

Regional politicians, officials and military officers gathered in the Morelos state capital of Cuernavaca for breakfast in February 2022 to mark Mexico’s annual Army day. Mexican drug lords have a long tradition of buying off politicians in exchange for government protection of their illicit trade. Attempts to reach two of the alleged drug traffickers in the photo – Figueroa and Irving Solano Vera – were unsuccessful. Prosecutors in April asked the Morelos state congress to impeach Blanco so that he could be stripped of that shield. “He likes me very much because I’m not a politician,” Blanco told Reuters, in reference to the president.

☆ Marine veteran who boasted about assaulting police officers with chemical spray on Jan. 6 is sentenced to more than 5 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Marine veteran was sentenced to more than 5 years in prison on a Jan. 6 charge on Wednesday. Prosecutors say he was caught on camera assaulting police officers and later bragging about it. Caldwell pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting police officers with a deadly weapon in September 2022. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Caldwell to 68 months in prison on Wednesday, as well as $2,000 in restitution for damage to the Capitol. In a separate video, Caldwell discussed the assault, telling the person behind the camera that he "got like 15 of them," referring to the officers.

☆ U.S. prosecutors probe Silvergate's dealings with FTX, Alameda - Bloomberg News
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud unit are looking into Silvergate Capital Corp's (SI.N) dealings with bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and Alameda Research, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The criminal investigation is examining Silvergate's hosting of accounts tied to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's businesses, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The Department of Justice and Silvergate Capital did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Earlier this week, a group of bipartisan U.S. senators sent a letter to Silvergate asking for details of its risk management practices and its dealings with FTX. Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Sam Bankman-Fried is in talks with U.S. prosecutors to resolve a dispute over the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder's bail conditions, his lawyer said on Thursday. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty and is under house arrest at his parents' California home. Once worth an estimated $26 billion, Bankman-Fried was arrested in December after FTX collapsed. Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk management failures, but said FTX collapsed because of a liquidity crunch and that he did not steal funds. Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel WallisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

BOSTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The founder of a defunct cryptocurrency business was sentenced on Tuesday to more than eight years in prison for defrauding investors and customers out of millions of dollars by marketing a virtual currency called My Big Coin with lies and half-truths. Federal prosecutors had urged U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston to impose a 13-year prison term on Randall Crater to send a message to others in the first sentencing of a cryptocurrency company founder for a marketing fraud. While Casper concluded that that request went too far, she rejected Crater's contention that a 30-month prison term was sufficient to punish him for his false claims, including that My Big Coin was a real cryptocurrency backed by gold. Prosecutors subsequently secured Crater's indictment in 2019 and accused him of causing investors and customers to lose $7.5 million from 2014 to 2017 with lies about My Big Coin, whose name sounded similar to the popular virtual currency bitcoin. Prosecutors said those false claims included that My Big Coin was a real virtual currency, was backed by gold and had a partnership with MasterCard (MA.N).

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg established a grand jury for another Trump investigation. The special grand jury is hearing evidence over whether Trump broke laws with his 2016 hush-money payment. The case is being heard by a special grand jury, according to the Times, which sits for six months rather than the standard single month. Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., allowed members of his team to bring evidence to a grand jury over potential tax and bank fraud charges. According to the Times, to bring felony charges against Trump, prosecutors would need to prove he falsified records for the payment to conceal a second crime.

☆ Media frenzy from Alex Murdaugh double homicide trial is disrupting weddings at event hall across the street from the courthouse, bride says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Alex Murdaugh murder trial is underway at a South Carolina courthouse across the street from a wedding venue. One bride told The Daily Beast she's stressed about her wedding being so close to the trial. "I did know about the courthouse being across the street but we have never had a trial like this before," DeLong told The Daily Beast. It was more convenient due to the weather and location in town," she told The Daily Beast. "I had been super excited and now I am pretty stressed out," DeLong said, according to The Daily Beast.

☆ DOJ Seeks to Ban Sam Bankman-Fried From Contacting FTX Employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( James Fanelli | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge to bar FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried from communicating with current and former employees of the collapsed crypto exchange without a lawyer present after prosecutors alleged he recently contacted a potential witness in his criminal case. Mr. Bankman-Fried, who faces federal charges related to the implosion of FTX, reached out to the general counsel of the company’s U.S. operation through an encrypted messaging application earlier this month, federal prosecutors said in a filing. Prosecutors said Mr. Bankman-Fried has also contacted other current and former FTX employees and are concerned that the communications could lead to witness tampering.

☆ U.S. seeks tighter bail for FTX founder Bankman-Fried to prevent tampering
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Citing Bankman-Fried's "recent attempts to contact prospective witnesses," prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to ban Bankman-Fried from communicating with current or former employees of FTX or his Alameda Research hedge fund, other than family, unless a lawyer is present. They also asked that Bankman-Fried not use Signal or other encrypted call and messaging applications, though he could still communicate through text messages, email and the phone. In Friday's letter, prosecutors cited a Signal message on Jan. 15 from Bankman-Fried to "Witness-1," the general counsel of the FTX U.S. affiliate. Bankman-Fried expressed interest in having a "constructive relationship" or "at least vet things with each other." In seeking to keep Bankman-Fried off Signal, prosecutors said he had in 2021 directed that many Signal and Slack communications be autodeleted within 30 days.

☆ Abuses Proliferate in Police Squads Like Memphis's Scorpion Unit
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Katherine Long | Jack Newsham | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +27 min

Street Crime Unit. Jon Naso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesMemphis police chief Davis also has prior experience with special street crime units. Street crime squads are popular among politicians who say only aggressive policing will reduce violent crime. In the late 1990s, the Street Crime Unit tripled in size, amid a panic over a rising number of homicides. In a city grappling with violent crime, authorities touted the Street Crime Unit as a bright spot.

The assailants had been monitoring the property and may have observed that she often shares flowers with her neighbors, she said. Omarov then sent those details to Mehdiyev, who lived in Yonkers, New York, prosecutors said. Amirov and Omarov then arranged for Mehdiyev to get $30,000 in cash, which he used to buy an assault rifle and ammunition, prosecutors said. Omarov, 38, was arrested in the Czech Republic earlier this month, and the United States is seeking his extradition. Iran accuses Western powers of fomenting the unrest, which security forces have met with deadly violence.

☆ NYC bike path killer convicted, could face the death penalty
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack is seen in this handout photo released November 1, 2017. An Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of 28 federal crimes and could face the death penalty. A death sentence for Saipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, would be an extreme rarity in New York. A federal jury in New York has not rendered a death sentence that withstood legal appeals in decades, with the last execution in 1954. Saipov's lawyers have said the death penalty process was irrevocably tainted by former President Donald Trump, who tweeted a day after the attack that Saipov "SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!"

Jan 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden are calling on the country's accounting watchdog to increase oversight of firms that audit cryptocurrency companies in the wake of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. “When PCAOB-registered auditors perform sham audits – even for firms that may lay outside of the PCAOB’s jurisdiction – they tarnish the credibility of the PCAOB," Warren and Wyden wrote. A PCAOB spokesperson confirmed the board had received the letter and said it would respond to the lawmakers directly. Bankman-Fried has previously acknowledged risk-management failures at FTX but has said he does not believe he has criminal liability. Reporting by Hannah Lang and Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Josie KaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Race against the clock for Germany's top Nazi hunter
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Tilman Blasshofer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/5] Nazi hunter Thomas Will, head of Germany's main agency responsible for the investigation of war crimes during Nazi rule looks into files at the Central Office of State Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, Germany, January 25, 2023. REUTERS/Timm ReichertLUDWIGSBURG, Germany, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Germany's top Nazi hunter, Thomas Will, is hopeful of securing further convictions over the Holocaust even as the remaining suspects, many now in their late 90s, die. So as long as perpetrators are still alive, we will pursue the cases," he said from his office outside Stuttgart in southwestern Germany. Will heads Germany's Central Office of State Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes. The conviction last month of a 97-year-old woman who worked as a concentration camp secretary "was certainly one of the last", Will said.

☆ Hawaii man imprisoned for 1991 murder and rape of tourist released after judge hears new evidence of innocence
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

A court officer removes Albert Schweitzer's handcuffs at a hearing in Hilo, Hawaii, on Jan. 24, 2023. “Nerves, anxiety, scared.”The justice system is “flawed,” he said, calling himself one of many imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Some intentional and some unintentional.”Ireland’s relatives couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the petition and Schweitzer’s release. In 2019, Schweitzer’s attorneys and Hawaii County prosecutors entered into a “conviction integrity agreement” to reinvestigate the case. Despite the lack of evidence linking them to the killing, the two Schweitzers and Pauline were indicted in 1997.

☆ Ex-kickboxer Andrew Tate says Romanian prosecutors have no evidence against him
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage. They also said Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer who holds U.S. and British nationality, raped one of the victims in March last year, which he had denied. Asked whether he has hurt women, Tate said: "Of course not." "There is no evidence against me," Tristan Tate told reporters on Wednesday. Andrew Tate gained mainstream notoriety for misogynistic remarks that got him banned from all major social media platforms, although his Twitter account was reinstated in November after Elon Musk acquired the social media giant.

☆ Ex-Proud Boy says group 'celebrated' violence ahead of U.S. Capitol riot
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Andrew Goudsward | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

“I can’t say it was ever overtly encouraged, but it was never discouraged, and when it happened it was celebrated,” Greene said of the Proud Boys' use of violence. Prosecutors allege that Pezzola was among the first rioters to breach the Capitol building after shattering a window with a stolen police shield. Lawyers for the defendants have argued that there was no plan to storm the Capitol and Proud Boys leadership directed members at previous rallies to only respond to left-wing counter protesters in self-defense. Greene acknowledged that he did not know many of the defendants and was not directed to use force by members of the Proud Boys leadership ahead of the riot at the Capitol. He described a “rising anger” in the crowd as Proud Boy leaders led the group in chants outside the Capitol.

☆ Former FBI Agent Charged With Taking Payments From Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Dylan Tokar | C. Ryan Barber | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

A former high-level FBI agent was indicted on charges he violated U.S. sanctions by accepting secret payments from Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska for work he did investigating a rival oligarch. Mr. McGonigal, who also supervised investigations into Mr. Deripaska and other Russian oligarchs before departing the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2018, began conspiring to provide services to Mr. Deripaska in 2021, prosecutors said. Additionally, the former FBI agent in 2019 participated in an unsuccessful effort to have the sanctions on Mr. Deripaska lifted, prosecutors said. PREVIEWAn indictment unsealed on Monday charged Mr. McGonigal and a former Russian diplomat, Sergey Shestakov, with violating and conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions imposed on Mr. Deripaska in 2018, as well as with related money-laundering charges. Prosecutors in October also announced the indictment of a British businessman who worked as a property manager for Mr. Deripaska.

☆ Ex-FBI official worked for sanctioned Russian oligarch, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Luc Cohen | Thomson Reuters | Reports On The New York Federal Courts. Previously Worked As A Correspondent In Venezuela | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A former top FBI official was arrested over the weekend on accusations he worked for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, prosecutors said on Monday. Charles McGonigal, who led the agency's counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018, faces four counts including sanctions violations and money laundering. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan say McGonigal, 54, received concealed payments from Deripaska, who was sanctioned in 2018, in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch in 2021. He is also charged with unsuccessfully pushing in 2019 for the lifting of the sanctions on Deripaska. The following month, U.S. prosecutors charged British businessman Graham Bonham-Carter with conspiring to violate sanctions by trying to move Deripaska's artwork in the United States overseas.

The investigation into a failed New Mexico political candidate and a string of shootings has expanded, with officials now looking to determine if contributions to the suspect's campaign were funneled by drug trafficking, police said. No one was hurt in the shootings, which all involved elected Democratic officials. But a man who police have said was allegedly involved, Jose Trujillo, donated more than $5,000 to Pena's campaign and that man's mother also donated about $4,000 to the campaign, officials said. Trujillo is listed as a cashier in Pena's campaign reports. In the following days, a shooting occurred outside the home of new state House Speaker Javier Martinez.

☆ Jury convicts Kansas man of threatening to kill congressman
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Jurors found Chase Neill, 32, of Lawrence, guilty of a single count of threatening a U.S. government official. The judge had Neill give his testimony Thursday as a narrative from the witness stand because he was representing himself. Neill admitted in court that he left the June 5 voicemail and others with more death threats the next day. Hunting told jurors that it was reasonable for LaTurner and his staff to take Neill’s words seriously as threats. “I’m really trying to explain how I interact with God, and it’s a difficult explanation,” Neill told jurors during his testimony Thursday.

Former top FTX attorney Daniel Friedberg also opposed Sullivan & Cromwell's hiring, saying Thursday that the law firm had conflicts of interest stemming from its connections to Miller. Sullivan & Cromwell has told the court it should not be disqualified simply because it performed some pre-bankruptcy work for FTX. A Sullivan & Cromwell spokesperson has said the firm had a "limited and largely transactional" relationship with FTX prior to the bankruptcy and never served as primary outside counsel to any FTX entity. Serving as primary bankruptcy counsel to FTX would likely allow Sullivan & Cromwell to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, legal experts have said. FTX has sought bankruptcy court permission to pay top Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys more than $2,000 per hour.

☆ Elizabeth Holmes booked a 1-way ticket to Mexico for a friend's wedding while out on bail, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Charles R. Davis | Azmi Haroun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes bought a one-way ticket to Mexico last year, per prosecutors. In response, Holmes' attorney, Lance Wade, said the trip was planned prior to Holmes' conviction on January 3, 2022. "The hope was that the verdict would be different and Ms. Holmes would be able to make this trip to attend the wedding of close friends in Mexico," he wrote. The Theranos founder has sought to stay out of custody as her appeal is pending. "There are not two systems of justice — one for the wealthy and one for the poor — there is one criminal justice system in this country," government lawyers wrote in the document.

The lawyers, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, did not specify when the incident took place, describing it only as recent. The news organizations argued last week that the right of the public to know the two sureties' identities outweighed their privacy and safety rights. Bankman-Fried's lawyers said the media groups "assign far too much weight to the presumption of access" and ignored the safety of the guarantors. Prosecutors took no position on whether to disclose the sureties' identities or not, Bankman-Fried's lawyers wrote in the filing. Prosecutors interviewed and approved the two individuals on Jan. 4, Cohen and Everdell wrote.

"FTX in my view now gets painted as a crypto problem. I think if you really peel enough onion layers, it's not really a crypto ... problem to happen here, it's fraud. "We talk about this as a crypto problem. But really, this is just fraud, and I think in some ways, not that dissimilar than Bernie Madoff," said Garlinghouse. "When Bernie Madoff occurred, we didn't totally restructure how we thought about oversight and regulation of hedge funds."

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