Free Republic

...secretive group in upstate New York...videotaped ceremonies where they were branded in their pelvic area with a symbol featuring Raniere’s initials. “During the branding ceremonies, slaves were required to be fully naked, and the master would order one slave to film while the other held down the slave being branded,” the complaint says...“slaves” had to stick to very low-calorie diets...“forced to wear fake cow udders over their breasts while people called them derogatory names,” or threatened with being put in cages,...Raniere has been bankrolled by Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune. Bronfman gave millions of dollars covering...

A Metairie man walked with a machete into a Kenner Walmart and used the weapon to try to kidnap a 2-year-old boy and then an infant, swinging the blade at store employees before he was tackled and arrested Friday (March 23), police said. At one point, police said, Billy Yoe Budier-Herrera, 33, forced a mother to struggle for her child and to take refuge behind the store's deli counter, moments before store employees and an off-duty Kenner police officer working a detail subdued Budier-Herrera inside the Walmart Supercenter, at 8912 Veterans Blvd. Budier-Herrera was booked with two counts of second-degree...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two men and a woman are accused of chasing down two 14-year-old suspected car thieves, forcing them into the trunk of their car at gunpoint and driving them to the Cleveland Police Fourth District headquarters, according to police. Kenyatta Ware II, 21, George Barnes, 29, and Shelia Beale, 49, are all charged with felonious assault and kidnapping. All three have been arrested and are awaiting their first court appearance. It is unknown if the two 14-year-old boys have been formally charged, but they were arrested on suspicion of grand theft of a motor vehicle, according to police...

Days before catcher Elias Diaz was to report to spring training with the other Pirates pitchers and catchers, the Venezuelan native learned his mother was kidnapped in their home country. The incident was first reported by a Venezuelan local news organization, which said Diaz’s mother went missing Thursday afternoon. MLB players who hail from Venezuela, and make up the third-most represented nationality in the league, have grappled with how to handle the danger facing their family members back home, as kidnappings of the relatives of athletes and celebrities have increased amid the political turmoil there. The Pirates said in a...

Friday, February 02, 2018 The Kidnappings Americans Won't Do Posted by Daniel Greenfield We all know that there are jobs that Americans won’t do. That’s what the politicians who don’t want Americans doing them tell us. If an industry is dominated by immigrants or illegal aliens, they say that it’s because Americans won’t do these jobs. But when immigrants and aliens dominate certain types of crime, is it because there are some crimes that Americans won’t commit? Like kidnapping? According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 42.4 percent of federal kidnapping convictions are of non-citizens. Non-citizens also account for 31.5...

MESA, AZ - A woman who says she was just looking for a ride home was zip tied and sexually assaulted. Mesa Police report that on January 5 a woman was walking near Broadway and Alma School roads when a man offered her a ride home. The man, later identified as 27-year-old Fonseca Roman Orozco, took her to an apartment near Center Street and Southern Avenue. Orozco allegedly zip-tied her hands and and feet and sexually assaulted her several times before taking her outside and cutting her loose.

Cables Portray Expanded Reach of Drug Agency By GINGER THOMPSON and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be...

On Jan. 1, a woman told the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 Office she left her car running with her 7-month-old child inside as she went into the Shell gas station located in the 21500 block of Aldine Westfield — which is northeast Harris County. While inside the store, an unknown man got into her car and took off with the baby inside. Deputies began immediately searching for the suspect and were able to find the baby left on the side of the road a few miles away from the gas station. The baby had no injuries and was reunited...

A kidnapping victim was found partially clothed by a group of people who were looking for a Christmas tree. The 25-year-old woman told investigators she was forcibly taken during the afternoon on November 26 by known acquaintances, Johanna Knighten, 33, and Fred Sanderson, 44. The victim said Knighten drove her in a white van, and Sanderson physically assaulted her, holding her against her will. She told authorities the suspects believed she had stolen narcotics from Sanderson. Fred Sanderson When the suspects arrived at the remote location, the victim was forced to undress and then left alone wearing only a pair...

Mr Amiri, 32, said he was seized and spirited from the country after being offered a lift while walking towards a mosque. He gave his account before flying home to Iran on Wednesday after taking refuge at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington earlier this week. The US state department has insisted he was in the US of his own free will but Mr Amiri said he was kidnapped by secret agents in Medina, Islam's second holiest city, in May last year. "A white van stopped in front of me... They told me in Farsi that...

Iran has accused the US of abducting one of its nuclear scientists who has been missing since June. Shahram Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia while on a Muslim pilgrimage.

Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information. Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access. “I don’t know what they have, but...

Published September 07, 2017 Fox News Now Playing Teen girl swims across lake to escape 'nightmare' kidnapping A Minnesota teen who was kidnapped for almost a month swam across a lake Tuesday to escape her abductors, officials said. The teenager, from Alexandria, Minn., made it safely across the lake before running onto a property where she received help, CBS Minnesota reported. Authorities said the young girl was kidnapped on Aug. 8 by Thomas Barker, 32, who urged the teen to get into his car and drove her to a residence in Carlos. Barker, his roommate and another friend physically and...

The case was over the abduction of Dong-Shik, a South Korean who was a permanent resident of the US and had spent seven years providing aid and proselytizing to North Korean defectors. An Israeli NGO announced on Monday that a US federal court in Washington, DC has granted it a historic $330 million default award judgment against North Korea in a civil damages trial for wrongful death, torture and kidnapping. The judgment, only announced Monday, but written on April 9, included $15 million dollars each to the son and brother of Reverend Dong Shik Kim, presumed dead, as well as...

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz seemingly planned to pay cyber-probe suspect and IT aide Imran Awan even while he was living in Pakistan, if the FBI hadn’t stopped him from leaving the U.S. Monday. Public statements and congressional payroll records suggest she also appears to have known that his wife, a fellow IT staffer, left the country for good months ago — while she was also a criminal suspect. In all, six months of actions reveal a decision to continue paying a man who seemingly could not have been providing services to her, and who a mountain of evidence suggests...

At center of Qatar crisis, a $1 billion ransom The crisis over Qatar that is gripping the Middle East hinges on an alleged $1 billion ransom that was reportedly paid to release members of Qatar’s royal family and others who were kidnapped in Iraq. That payment appears to be the breaking point in the tense relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries in the region, according to one report earlier this month. On Tuesday, the State Department said it was “mystified” that Gulf states had not given reasons for their decision to cut...

A Mentally Disturbed Culture-Enriching Kidnapper in LausanneThe account below from the Swiss daily 20 minutes describes the abduction of a baby in the Lausanne area by a North African migrant. Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation: “He hit me and fled with my 6-month-old baby”by Abdoulaye Penda Ndiaye A kidnapping took place on Sunday in La Sallaz. Two days before, the kidnapper sowed panic in the M2 [metro in Lausanne] shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The physical marks of the wounds are still there: Marco’s* lips are slightly swollen and traces of blood are visible on his skull. But...

DURHAM, N.C. - A North Carolina man has been arrested after police say he kidnapped a family at gunpoint and forced them to take him shopping. Durham police say on Tuesday 29-year-old Rollin Anthony Owens Jr. knocked on the door of a house in the West End neighborhood asking for money. A resident gave Rollins money, but police say he then used a gun to force the residents - a man, woman and two children - out of the house and into their vehicle. Owens allegedly made the driver take him to a convenience store, then a Target where a...

Midwest City Police have released surveillance video from a Walmart of a man who took a 2-year-old girl from a mother's shopping cart, and held a knife to the child's throat. ...... Clabes says when the girl began squirming, Wallace moved the knife from her abdomen to her neck. Wallace also mentioned a satanic cult, and started a 60-second countdown.

WASHINGTON — An American kidnapped two years ago in Yemen while helping coordinate aid for Unicef and the Red Cross also had a second, secret role: He was shipping materials for elite military commandos under a clandestine contract his employer had with the Pentagon. The arrangement with Special Operations forces has never been made public. {snip} Mr. Darden’s work offers a rare look into the shadowy world of military contractors that operate in lawless war zones like Yemen, Somalia and Libya. But arrangements like the one Transoceanic had with Special Operations forces can cast suspicion over aid workers, potentially putting...