Crime

Bell, Rogers, Telus and Freedom Mobile were served with court-ordered “production orders” to release cellphone “tower dumps” to the Toronto Police Intelligence Unit. It was a considerable task for the telecommunications companies, assembling thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of bits of data — the electronic tracings of phone calls and text messages that passed through cellular towers in two areas Barry and Honey travelled both the night they were murdered, and at other key times.

These so-called “tower dumps” were then compared to about 300 cellphone numbers police had gathered in their investigation — belonging to a mix of Sherman friends, family, work associates and others. Maybe, detectives thought, just maybe, they would strike investigative gold.

Use HMA with this link to access.

When police busted a shoplifting ring operating out of a liquor store last spring, they calculated that the dozen or so people involved had swiped at least $375,000 worth of goods from retailers such as Walmart, Lowe’s, and Walgreens. The pair heading the ring relied on small-time thieves, including several with drug arrest records, to launch brazen “grab-and-go” operations in which they snatched expensive goods and then raced out of stores and fled in cars with phony license plates. Though police and prosecutors often categorize shoplifting as a nonviolent crime, the gang’s sprees resulted in several physical confrontations, including one in which a gang member assaulted a store employee with a stun gun. This may sound similar to the organized smash-and-grab lootings that have plagued high-end retailers in San Francisco and other Northern California communities recently, but this gang was operating out of Daytona Beach, Florida—and had done so for nearly two years.

Elizabeth Holmes, the 37-year-old disgraced founder of Theranos, has been convicted of four fraud charges for deceiving investors of $9billion and for bilking thousands of patients with inaccurate and false medical reports.

Holmes, a Stanford University dropout who founded Theranos in 2003 at age 19, duped thousands of patients with bogus claims her biotech startup company could conduct a full range of medical tests using blood from a simple finger prick.

She was convicted of four fraud counts on Monday night, and cleared of four others. Jurors were unable to decide verdicts on the three remaining charges she faced, with prosecutors now able to re-try Holmes on those counts if they wish to.

Very curious about the sentence she will draw.

In the old days, criminals understood if they were caught there would be consequences.

In today’s urban America, if you are a thief, why wouldn’t you smash a glass door or glass display case and grab all the merchandise you could? Seriously, why wouldn’t you? In the old days you wouldn’t because you would be scared that you would get caught.

In the past, “smash and grab” robberies occurred, but it was a very infrequent occurrence. It was rare because thieves understood if they were caught there would be consequences, and even punishment, perish the thought! A criminal would have to raise bail to be released. If not, he would have to spend weeks or even months in the slammer.

NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) – The possible failure of a juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial to disclose that he was a victim of sexual abuse may not be enough to overturn the British socialite’s sex trafficking conviction and warrant a new trial, legal experts said on Thursday.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted last week on sex trafficking and other charges for recruiting teenage girls to have sexual encounters with Jeffrey Epstein. Her lawyers asked for a new trial after the juror told Reuters and other news outlets that he shared his experience of sexual abuse during deliberations.

The judge in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial asked prosecutors and defense lawyers to brief her on whether a new trial is needed over press comments made by a juror.

MANDEL: Billion-dollar class action wins go-ahead against alleged nationwide bread price-fixing

Millions of Canadian sandwich makers could soon be sharing in a huge pile of dough.

An Ontario judge has given the green light to a class-action lawsuit against the major players in the $40-billion packaged bread market — including Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro — for an alleged 20-year price-fixing scheme. The cartel of manufacturers and grocery chains are accused of colluding to inflate the price of “soft top” sandwich loaves like Wonder Bread and pocketing about $5 billion in ill-gotten gains.

Why is no one in jail for this? 

Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction on five of six charges of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for sexual encounters with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is not and should not be the end of the story.

While Maxwell has been held accountable for her actions, the men who engaged in these encounters with underage girls have not, at least not yet. There is speculation Maxwell could strike a bargain with the court for a reduced sentence if she releases the names and possible videos that Epstein shot of some of the men who traveled to his Caribbean island and New York home.

In September 2020, the Toronto Police Department investigating the murders of the two billionaires used terms such as “walking man” and “killer” in their investigation notes, describing the belief that an unknown “man” with an unusual gait was their prime suspect.

As described in the search warrant and production order requests that police made to obtain cell phone tracking data, detectives now had a “working theory.”

“The theory is that investigators believe that both Bernard and Honey Sherman were murdered and that the perpetrator, presumably a man, is referred to as the ‘walking man’ that can be seen on video surveillance” was their prime suspect, one detective wrote in a request to the court for permission to conduct additional analyzes of mobile communications data.

Holmes was unanimously found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was found not guilty of four more charges and the jury could not reach a decision on three additional fraud charges.

She faces up to 20 years in prison for each charge, though it’s likely they would be served concurrently. A sentencing date hasn’t been given and it’s not clear if she will be placed into custody immediately in the meantime. Court watchers have said it’s likely Holmes will appeal.

The jury weighing fraud charges against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes told the court it is unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three of the 11 criminal counts she faces, according to a note from the panel read aloud in court on Monday morning.

Jurors in the high-profile Silicon Valley trial had been deliberating for seven days after a trial that chronicled the missteps of the now-defunct blood testing startup. Over the course of 15 weeks, federal prosecutors called 29 witnesses, outlining missteps and alleged fraud Holmes committed during her 15-year reign as CEO.

In response to the note, US district judge Edward Davila gave the jury what is called an Allen charge, encouraging them to deliberate further.