Free Republic

A series of so-called “wrench attacks,” violent robberies targeting wealthy cryptocurrency holders, are making headlines after victims in Los Angeles and the Bay Area were targeted, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. On Nov. 22, a San Francisco man was robbed of $13 million in digital currency after thieves posing as pizza delivery drivers forced their way into his home, bound him with duct tape, beat him with a firearm and threatened to cut off his fingers. The victim told investigators he had been expecting a package when a man carrying a white box arrived on the front porch of his...

A former Los Angeles Unified School District employee has been charged in what prosecutors described as a pay-to-play scheme that directed more than $22 million in contracts to a single technology company, making it one of the largest money laundering schemes in the district’s history. Officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office allege that between 2018 and 2022, 53-year-old Pasadena resident, Hong “Grace” Peng, who worked as a technical project manager for LAUSD, of illegally awarding Innive, a Texas-based tech company, millions of dollars worth of contracts for work on the district’s My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS)....

An attempted homicide investigation is underway in a California state prison after a supervising correctional officer was reportedly attacked by three inmates, authorities announced Thursday.

The suspect in a triple homicide in Riverside, who was shot and killed by deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Friday, has been identified as a 28-year-old man who used to be employed with the Virginia State Police. Authorities with the Riverside Police Department said that around 11 a.m. on Nov. 25, officers had been dispatched to a welfare check of a young a woman who appeared to be in distress while getting into a red Kia Soul with a man in the 11200 block of Price Court and leaving with him. While officers were responding, reports of...