Crime

Of the many mysteries that still surround the life and crimes of the notorious financier, the source of his wealth, and thus his power, might be the greatest. His long-standing business ties with his most prominent client, billionaire retail magnate Leslie Wexner, hold the key.

In the fall of 1982, a money manager named Harold Levin got a phone call that would change his life. A lawyer representing Leslie H. Wexner, the founder and CEO of the women’s apparel retailer The Limited, said Wexner was looking for a financial adviser. Would Levin be interested? Levin most certainly was. In Columbus, Ohio, where Levin lived, Wexner was a legend. Wexner grew The Limited from a single Columbus store into a global retail empire that included mall fixtures Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works.

Now that the British former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted in her sex-trafficking trial, speculation is growing that she may try to cut a deal and become a government witness in any broader investigation into the elite social circle of her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell would be aiming for a reduced sentence by naming powerful names when it comes to others who may be involved in Epstein’s crimes.

A Beverly Hills gun store owner says he’s seeing a massive business boom from affluent clients as a crime surge in Los Angeles scares residents.

The city’s only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, opened in July 2020 and has serviced wealthy clients from Santa Monica to Hollywood Hills following the rise in smash-and-grab robberies and home invasions, LA Mag reported. Heightened fears over being the victim of a crime has sent actors, real estate moguls and film executives to the store for safety, some purchasing a firearm for the first time, owner Russell Stuart told the outlet.

The BBC was forced to apologize Thursday for bringing on attorney Alan Dershowitz to discuss Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction — even though he faces allegations of sex abuse by a Jeffrey Epstein accuser.

Dershowitz, who previously represented Epstein in his controversial wrist-slap 2008 plea deal, used his airtime Wednesday night to blast his accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, as not credible.

How would he be privy to the prosecution’s strategy?

Epstein settlement with Giuffre to be made public, affects Prince Andrew case

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) – A 2009 settlement agreement between the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre, which bears directly on Giuffre’s civil lawsuit accusing Britain’s Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, will be made public early next week.

In a joint order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judges Lewis Kaplan and Loretta Preska in Manhattan ordered the agreement’s release on or about Jan. 3, 2022, finding no reason to keep it under seal.

… Preska oversees Giuffre’s lawsuit accusing Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz of defaming her when he denied her claim that he was among the men Epstein compelled her to have sex with.

MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York jury returned a guilty verdict Wednesday in the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, convicting the British heiress of recruiting vulnerable teenage girls for predatory sexual abuse by the late millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

She was convicted on five of six counts, offering what attorneys for dozens of women have framed as a measure of justice robbed from them when Epstein was found dead in August 2019 — ruled to have hanged himself in his jail cell while awaiting federal charges that came over a decade after the cushy plea deal in Florida that massively limited his initial criminal exposure.

Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, is found GUILTY of five of the six charges in sex trafficking trial: Jury convicts Jeffrey Epstein’s madam and she now faces up to 65 years in prison

She still faces trial on two perjury charges.

Approximately 2,200 people have been shot during 2021 in Mayor Jim Kenney’s (D) troubled Philadelphia.

6 ABC reports “nearly 1,800” people had been shot and wounded and another 473 had been shot and killed as of December 22, 2021.

Overall, Philadelphia witnessed 547 homicides by December 22 as well.

Ever since Toronto Police street checks were shut down after 2014 on the orders of the provincial government and City Council, gun violence on Toronto streets has skyrocketed.

Not even the pandemic, including two years of so-called lockdowns, has put a significant dent in the mayhem.

Progressive reporters often prattle about “mass incarceration,” as if incarceration rates were somehow excessive. But polls show most Americans don’t think prison sentences are too long for violent criminals, and many offenders spend little or no time in jail.

Jeffrey Epstein’s green massage table was rolled into the courtroom as evidence in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial — because it’s key to the top charge the accused madam faces.

The unorthodox piece of evidence was raised by Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe in her closing argument Monday as she explained the lone sex-trafficking charge against Maxwell, which involves an element of interstate commerce.

The sex-trafficking count relates only to testimony from Maxwell accuser Carolyn, who said she was groped by the disgraced socialite at age 14 while preparing to massage Epstein.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jurors weighing the case of the suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Black motorist Daunte Wright asked the judge after a full day of deliberations Tuesday what they should do if they can’t reach a verdict.

Judge Regina Chu told them to continue working, as was explained in the initial instructions she gave them. The jury also deliberated for about five hours on Monday.

Former Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter, who is white, is charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter. If convicted of the most serious charge, Potter, 49, would face a sentence of about seven years under state guidelines, though prosecutors have said they will seek more.

The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial asked on Tuesday to review transcripts of testimony from three accusers.

Jurors in Manhattan federal court sent the judge a note around 10.10am, saying: “We would like the transcripts, testimony of Jane, Annie and Carolyn.”

Jane, who testified under a pseudonym, said Epstein started to sexually abuse her when she was 14. She told jurors Maxwell was sometimes present for, and participated in, such abuse.

She also discussed alleged group sexual encounters and recalled meeting Maxwell in summer 1994, at a youth arts camp in Michigan.

Defending a client charged with crimes modern society finds more terrible than murder, who might face the rest of her life in prison, Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence in New York opened with a nice lady who hadn’t seen anything, a travel agent who booked flights years after they mattered and a professor of BugsBunnyology – and none of them cut the mustard.

At the end of the defence’s first day, Maxwell was seen holding her hands up in despair at her fancy attorneys who have cost her, according to her own estimate, some $7m. Juries in US federal trials must be unanimous and there are legal grounds for knocking out some of the charges, but it looks bleak for Maxwell.