Free Republic

CHICAGO -- An investment banker accused of faking his own kidnapping and prompting a plane bound for Morocco to be diverted was sentenced Friday to two years of probation. Zubair Ali Ghias, 27, pleaded guilty to felony disorderly conduct for making false statements to police, officials said. He was also fined nearly $500. Ghias, who vanished from Chicago on Valentine's Day, told investigators he phoned his family after boarding a Feb. 19 flight from New York to Morocco and said he had been kidnapped by Arabs. Authorities initially thought a man called his wife and threatened to blow up the...

The husband of a missing pregnant woman told a "reliable citizen witness" in the psychiatric ward that he killed his wife as she slept before throwing her body in a trash bin, according to a court filing. The statement, released Tuesday by the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department, also says investigators found human blood on a knife in the bedroom of Mark Hacking's apartment and on their bed's headboard and a bedrail. Blood found in the bedroom matched traces of blood found in Lori Hacking's car, according to the statement. Mark Hacking was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated...