Free Republic

A federal jury on Friday convicted pro-Trump troll Douglass Mackey of plotting to trick voters out of casting a ballot during the 2016 presidential election. The case, which sought to address if any of the toxic stew of Internet disinformation during the 2016 election rose to the level of a crime, has been closely watched by both anti-extremist groups and right-wing politicians and pundits. Mackey, 33, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who gained fame on the Internet as the Twitter user “Ricky Vaughn,” posted two images made to look like fake Hillary Clinton ads telling people they could vote by...

A prominent pro-life priest known for his nonviolent attempts to hinder the operation of abortion clinics to save unborn children faces federal charges for padlocking closed the gate to a New York abortion clinic in July, blocking the entrance to the clinic in the hopes of counseling the women seeking an abortion that day to reconsider. Father Fidelis Moscinski, 52, a priest of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR), was charged last week under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 federal law that prohibits the blocking of access to abortion clinics. According to a...

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that Archie Kissling, 25, of Aston, PA, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, 10 years of supervised release, and $39,000 in restitution by United States District Court Judge Jan E. DuBois for multiple child exploitation offenses, stemming from his sexual abuse of a young child for months, and his extensive collection of horrific child pornography. Kissling’s sentence also requires him to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law.In July 2019, the defendant pleaded guilty to six counts of manufacturing child pornography, and one count each of transportation and...

SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that the former mayor for the City of Scranton, William L. Courtright, age 63, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by United States District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion, on public corruption charges. According to United States Attorney David J. Freed, Courtright previously pleaded guilty on July 2, 2020, to charges involving criminal conspiracy, bribery and extortion in July 2019.  Courtright had been the subject of a multi-year year undercover investigation headed by the FBI.  The undercover investigation captured the former mayor accepting...