What does crime cost?
Big question, I know. But as we have just finished up one of the worst years for crime in American history, in terms of unexpected and painful growth of various types of crime, it is worth considering the human cost of this epidemic.
We can quote statistics until the cows come home, but eyes glaze over, and the impact may be lost. Numbers and percentages are just figures on spreadsheets and graphs, impersonal and unrelatable.
Naples authorities refuse a public send-off for the convicted murderer known as Lady Camorra
No crowds attended the cortege for Assunta Maresca, better known as Pupetta Maresca, who died at home this week in Castellammare di Stabia aged 86. Maresca, a convicted murderer and mafia boss also known as Lady Camorra, had been the centre of such frenzied media attention in her life that Naples authorities declared she would not have a public send-off.
“We are seeing on social media a glorification of this woman who is a symbol of the Camorra in our neighbourhood,” Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a regional councillor for the Europa Verde party, said in a letter to the Naples police. “The mythologising of bosses is to be avoided at all costs.”
Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A US jury convicted her of five out of six charges, but the legal process is not over for Maxwell, 60, who is yet to be sentenced and faces a separate trial for perjury.
Charges against two New York prison guards have been dropped by prosecutors. The pair had admitted to falsifying records about their movements on the night financier Jeffrey Epstein hung himself in his cell.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors signed a ‘nolle prosequi’ dropping charges against two former New York prison warders, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, who were on duty the night Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in August 2019.
Prince Andrew has been asked to provide documentary evidence of “his alleged inability to sweat” and the names of anyone he met at a Pizza Express in Woking by lawyers for Virginia Giuffre, who accuses him of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in New York.
The lawyers have also demanded any documents related to his “travel to or from . . . the Tramp nightclub” in London and any gifts he received from Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, “including but not limited to puppets”.
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.
Private security contractors report that a recent string of high-profile retail robberies and home burglaries in upscale Los Angeles neighborhoods has caused a dramatic uptick in requests for their services and prompted many of their wealthy clients to change their routines out of a mix of caution and fear.
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.
A Chicago 911 dispatcher ripped into the city’s leadership, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for causing staffing shortages that have hampered authorities’ efforts to respond to rising crime.
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.
