Free Republic

The world is upside down. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was unarmed, peaceful, and never entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was just sentenced to 18 years in prison for “seditious conspiracy.” Meanwhile, soft-on-crime Democrats continue to reduce prison sentences and penalties for violent criminals — and a man who shot a pro-lifer received nothing but community service. Fox 28 reported on May 23 that 75-year-old Richard Harvey, who “pleaded no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman” campaigning for the pro-life cause, received a very light sentence indeed. Harvey has to complete 100 hours of community service, “a...

Paul Pelosi, 82, pleaded guilty to one charge of DUI and has been sentenced to three years of probation and five days in jail, with credit for time served, according to the records. He will also need to do eight hours of a court work program, participate in a drinking-and-driving course that will last for three months, use an ignition interlock device for a year, and pay $150, according to TMZ. On May 28, Pelosi crashed his Porsche into a Jeep near Yountville, California. According to authorities, he failed his sobriety test and was not steady while being taken into...

As the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson picked up steam, Republican senators zeroed in on a particular case from 2013 in which she allegedly gave light sentencing to a teenager who pleaded guilty to child porn charges. Sen Josh Hawley grilled Jackson on Tuesday about her past leniency on sex offenders. The Arkansas Republican brought up the 2013 case of Wesley Keith Hawkins, 27, who was 18 when his laptop was found to contain graphic and disturbing videos of young victims who allegedly lived in the same house as him. Jackson, who presided over...

The judge called the boy’s psychological reports scary The Loudoun County teenager charged with sexual assault at two separate high schools has been found guilty and sentenced to supervised probation in a residential treatment facility. The Loudoun County Juvenile Court had previously found the male student "not innocent" of charges of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio against a female student in a May 28 incident at Stone Bridge High School. The same student pleaded "no contest" in a separate case to two charges of abduction and sexual battery involving an incident at Broad Run High School on October 6, Fox...

HONOLULU, Hawaii – A federal judge today sentenced Joelyn DeCosta, 48, of Honolulu, Hawaii, to two years of probation and a $5000 fine for willfully and maliciously interfering with the working and use of a communication system operated and controlled by the United States, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1362.According to documents and information presented in court, DeCosta was an Airway Transportation Systems Specialist for the Federal Aviation Administration, and had worked for the F.A.A. for approximately 26 years. On January 4, 2019, she willfully and maliciously severed communications between Air Traffic Control in Honolulu and...

Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein could face new criminal charges if lawyers for his alleged former teen “sex slaves” succeed in an unusual effort to overturn a 2008 plea deal that gave him house arrest, despite accusations he pimped the girls out to his rich and powerful friends. Attorneys for two of the 30 girls Epstein, 63, allegedly prostituted on his private jet, in his Florida mansion and at his private island hideaway are attempting to open up - and potentially overturn - the government’s secretive agreement with Epstein that critics say left him with just a slap on the...

The Maryland Senate narrowly overrode Gov. Larry Hogan's final veto from last year's General Assembly session, paving the way to reinstate voting rights to felons before they complete probation or parole. The 29-18 vote on Tuesday puts the law on the books 30 days from now and represents a political defeat for Hogan, a Republican. The bill was the sixth that Hogan vetoed last year, and the sixth the Democrat-controlled General Assembly reinstated. The vote, twice delayed in order to muster enough support, followed an expansive debate that touched on resolving racial disparities in the criminal justice system and protecting...

Teenagers to serve time - after football KENTON, Ohio — Two teenagers who pulled a stunt last winter that left a man physically disabled and his friend brain-damaged will each spend 60 days in juvenile detention, but not before they finish the upcoming high-school football season. Judge Gary F. McKinley told a standing-room-only crowd in his courtroom yesterday that he knows his decision to allow standout Kenton High School athletes Dailyn Campbell, 16, and Jesse Howard, 17, to play sports before serving their sentences will be unpopular. Five deputies were on hand during the sentencing hearing in Hardin County Common...

SIDNEY, Neb. - A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead. His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers. "You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said. But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category." Thompson will be electronically monitored the first four months of his probation, and he...

NOVEMBER 22--In a sweetheart plea deal, a former Florida middle school teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old male student escaped a jail term today. Debra Lafave, 24, pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior and was sentenced to three years of community control, or house arrest, and ordered to register as a sex offender. Lafave's plea came on the eve of trial and was approved by the teen victim and his family (in a court affidavit filed today, the boy's mother wrote that a trial would "negatively affect my son's emotional and psychological well-being"). Lafave, who...