Free Republic

WAUKEGAN, Ill. — The trial of the man accused of opening fire at a Fourth of July parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park ended almost as quickly as it began Monday when the suspect surprised the courtroom by pleading guilty. Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who faced 69 counts of murder and attempted murder stemming from the July 4, 2022, mass shooting, entered the plea shortly before opening statements were supposed to get underway.

A teenager allegedly behind hundreds of swatting incidents pleaded guilty on Wednesday to four counts of making interstate threats. Prosecutors claimed that 18-year-old Alan Filion of Lancaster, California, made more than 375 swatting and threatening calls from 2022 through January 2024. Some of the calls included claims that he placed bombs at religious institutions, schools, and government buildings. He also threatened to detonate the bombs or carry out mass shootings, the Justice Department reported. The teenager was mostly underage at the time of the calls, but he faces up to five years for each of the four charges. “This prosecution...

A judge on Tuesday sentenced former Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira to 15 years in prison after he admitted to posting classified military information online. Teixeira, who was 21 when he was arrested in April 2023, pleaded guilty to six charges of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act in March. Prosecutors have argued the case is "one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history." The former national guardsman reportedly uploaded hundreds of pages of sensitive military intelligence, including an assessment of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries,...

Disgraced former ABC News reporter James Gordon Meek is facing at least five years in prison after pleading guilty to child pornography in a Virginia federal court Friday. Meek, 53, admitted to transporting and possessing child sexual abuse material, which carries jail time ranging from 5-20 years. Under federal sentencing guidelines that come with his guilty plea, Meek is likely to face far less than the max at his Sept. 29 sentencing. Meek, a once-acclaimed national security journalist, was hit with the federal charges in February roughly 10 months after the FBI raided his Arlington, Va., home April 27, 2022,...

Typically, a case like Kevin Clinesmith's would end in disbarment, but not this time. Kevin Clinesmith, the former senior FBI lawyer who was placed on probation as a convicted felon for falsifying a surveillance document during the Trump-Russia investigation, has been returned to "good standing" as a member of the D.C. Bar Association. In August of 2020, Clinesmith pleaded guilty to doctoring an email that was then used to justify a surveillance warrant that targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. As a result, Clinesmith was sentenced in January to 12 months probation, though the D.C. bar did not seek...

The Washington D.C. Circuit Court of appeals has ruled 8-2 General Michael Flynn will not have his case dismissed as the Department of Justice has requested and must move forward with yet another hearing.

Michael Cohen, in Recorded Phone Call, Walks Back Parts of Guilty Plea Michael Rothfeld 8-10 minutes Michael Cohen has disavowed responsibility for some of the crimes to which he has pleaded guilty, privately contending in a recent recorded phone call that he hadn’t evaded taxes and that a criminal charge related to his home-equity line of credit was “a lie.” As he prepares to begin a three-year prison term on May 6, Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, expressed dismay during the conversation that after testifying for more than 100 hours to federal and congressional investigators about his work for...

A former Democratic congressional staffer pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges related to his leaking personal information about Republican senators and threatening a witness who caught him in the act. Jackson A. Cosko, 27, of D.C., copped to five offenses, including computer fraud, making public restricted personal information, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He faces nearly five years in prison when he is sentenced June 13. Cosko admitted to “doxing,” the act of posting personal information about another individual online. He said the goal was to “threaten and intimidate” the senators and their families. He posted the personal addresses...

Paul Manafort reached a deal to plead guilty to two criminal charges Friday, according to court documents, a move that heads off a second criminal trial for the former Trump campaign chairman. Mr. Manafort, who becomes the fifth associate of President Trump to plead guilty in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, is expected to admit to conspiracy against the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He already was convicted last month by a federal jury in Virginia of not reporting to tax authorities more than $16 million he earned for political consulting work in Ukraine in the early...

A former commander of the USS John S. McCain pleaded guilty Friday to dereliction of duty when the destroyer collided with a commercial tanker, killing 10 sailors and injuring five in the Straits of Singapore last August. Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, who has served in the Navy for more than 20 years, testified during a special court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard, Stars and Stripes reported. “I am ultimately responsible and stand accountable,” Sanchez said. “I will forever question my decisions that contributed to this tragic event.” Per disciplinary proceedings, Sanchez agreed to retire from service, forfeit $6,000 in wages, and...

Charged in a corruption scandal that could have sent him to prison for three lifetimes, former Sen. Ron Calderon dropped his entrapment defense, pleaded guilty and admitted taking bribes in exchange for his influence in Sacramento. As he faces sentencing Friday, though, prosecutors say Calderon is not taking responsibility for his actions and has presented a “whimsical and revisionist view of his conduct” in an effort to serve no time behind bars for graft that lined his own pockets and helped put his children through college. Federal prosecutors asked for a 5-year prison term in a blistering brief that mocked...

A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced Friday to two-and-a-half years hard labor for raping a Japanese tourist in Okinawa. Justin Castellanos, 24, who was based in the district's Camp Schwab, pleaded guilty in May to raping the 40-year-old victim in his hotel room in Naha, south Japan on March 13. The serviceman had found the woman, who was drunk and asleep in the hotel lobby, and taken her up to his room where he assaulted her. 'I am sorry for what I have done,' he told the court. 'My heart is filled with regret,' Stars and Stripes reports.

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A northern New York prison worker admitted Tuesday to smuggling hacksaw blades in frozen hamburger meat to two killers who later broke out and spent more than two weeks on the run. Joyce Mitchell, a tailor shop instructor at Clinton Correctional Facility, wept as she pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree promoting prison contraband, a felony, and misdemeanor fourth-degree criminal facilitation. Mitchell, 51, faces a sentence of 2⅓ years to 7 years in prison under terms of a plea deal with prosecutors. A sentencing date was not announced. Her lawyer said his client won’t be able...

Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian-American businessman who raised money for the political campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for defrauding Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc out of $292 million. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein imposed the sentence on Thursday following Nemazee's March 18 guilty plea in Manhattan federal court to charges of bank fraud and wire fraud over loan transactions with the three major banks. Nemazee said he needed the money to pay debts arising from his dealings in hedge funds and properties.

He's guilty as hell -- and proud of it. Bumbling terrorist Faisal Shahzad yesterday arrogantly admitted trying to detonate a homemade car bomb in Times Square -- boasting that he wanted to kill as many of his fellow Americans as possible. "I want to plead guilty, and I will plead guilty a hundred times over until the United States pulls its troops out of Afghanistan, stops its drone strikes in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims" Shahzad rambled to a Manhattan federal court judge. "We will be attacking [the] US, and...

A former Queens man yesterday confessed that he was trained by al Qaeda -- and that he had plotted to blow up the city's subway system around the anniversary of 9/11 last year. Najibullah Zazi, 25, told a Brooklyn federal court judge how he had driven to New York City from Denver, where he lived, on Sept. 10, 2009, with a detonator in his bag and bomb-making plans on his laptop to launch a "martyrdom" massacre at the behest of al Qaeda operatives. "It meant that I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the US military was doing...

Bernard Madoff faces 150 years as he agrees to plead guilty to fraud Bernard Madoff James Bone in New York Bernard Madoff could spend the rest of his life behind bars after he agreed to plead guilty last night to running a “massive Ponzi scheme”. The New York financier, 70, appeared in court in a dark suit and bullet-proof vest to face 11 charges of fraud that cheated some of America’s most famous names out of billions of dollars. Asked by the judge whether Mr Madoff would be pleading guilty, Ira Sorkin, his lawyer, said: “I think that is a...

Madoff Signals Possible Guilty Plea Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff appeared to be moving closer to a guilty plea, waiving his right to have a grand jury review the allegations against him, people involved in the case say. Prosecutors are expected to file additional charges against Mr. Madoff next week in connection with an alleged multibillion fraud, these people say. Mr. Madoff could plead guilty at an arraignment hearing set for Thursday, or he could deny the charges at that time and seek a jury trial. Madoff's attorney, Daniel Horwitz, declined to comment on his client's intentions, other than to say:...

We should oblige as soon as possible. All five of the Guantánamo detainees charged with planning and coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks have asked a military judge to accept their confessions in full. The request appeared to be intended to cut short any effort to try them, and to challenge the United States government to put them to death. more . . .

MIAMI - A Venezuelan man pleaded guilty Friday in a scheme to cover up the source of $800,000 in a suitcase seized in Argentina, where it was allegedly sent by Venezuelans as a donation to Cristina Fernandez's presidential campaign. Moises Maionica, 36, admitted to acting as an unregistered foreign government agent in the U.S. He could be sentenced to up to 15 years for this and a related conspiracy count, but is cooperating with prosecutors and thus could get a reduced sentence. U.S. officials said Maionica and four others tried to hide the Venezuelan source of the cash, which was...