Legal News Archive For
June, 2010

Porn Actor Snaps, Stabs Colleagues, Killing One

Added: 2010-06-30 14:04:06

A porn actor who is suspected of having killed one fellow performer and injured two others with a prop machete is on the run, say police in Los Angeles. Steven Hill, 34, is believed to have attacked his colleagues during a party at a production studio where he had been living. According to Los A...

MMA Fighter To Face Murder, Torture Charges In Death of Friend

Added: 2010-06-29 09:22:57

A mixed-martial arts fighter has been charged with several crimes in the gruesome murder and mutilation of a friend, after a drug-induced hallucination led him to believe that the two were engaged in an epic battle of good versus evil. Jarrod Wyatt, 26, is being charged with murder, aggravated m...

Supreme Court Rules That Suspects Must Invoke Miranda 'Right to Remain Silent'

Added: 2010-06-28 10:52:08

According to a new ruling by the United States Supreme Court, a criminal defendant must explicitly invoke his or her right to remain silent by stating their intention to do so. Otherwise, any statements they make during questioning will be allowable in later court proceedings. The 5-4 ruling, wh...

Terrorist Sweep Nets Illegal Immigrant Arrests, No Criminal Charges

Added: 2010-06-25 12:51:01

A Watertown, Massachusetts man who may have been involved with the failed Times Square bombing attempt was in the country illegally, say authorities. A federal immigration judge has delayed a decision about whether or not to deport the man, however. Pir Khan, a 43-year-old taxi driver who is ori...

Husband and Gang Member Arrested in Connection with L.A. Cold Case

Added: 2010-06-24 16:09:40

Seven years after Virginia Alvarez was murdered, charges have finally been filed against her former husband, an alleged gang member and the gang member's girlfriend. According to court documents, Gustavo Alvarez hired a member of the notorious Mexican street gang the Avenues to kill his wife. Vi...

Authorities Find Head of Murder-for-Hire Victim

Added: 2010-06-23 08:58:31

After searching for several days with the help of cadaver dogs, FBI agents and police officers from the California towns of Costa Mesa and Long Beach believe they have recovered the final body part—the head—belonging to a murder victim. The severed head was found in El Dorado park, the same ...

Gang Member, Juvenile Detention Escapee on Trial for Murder

Added: 2010-06-22 11:31:36

A teenaged gang member is on trial for stabbing a 23-year-old to death during a street fight in San Mateo County, CA. Adrian Sedano, 18, is accused of the August 2008 stabbing murder of Ramon Buenrostro—just weeks after having escaped from Camp Glenwood, a low-security county juvenile probatio...

Former Police Commissioner On Trial For Perjury In Abuse Investigation

Added: 2010-06-21 10:06:10

The federal trial of a former Chicago Police commissioner accused of torturing suspects, and later lying about it under oath, has now begun. Jon Burge, 62, was fired by the police department in 1993 for mistreatment of a suspect, but no criminal charges had been filed against him until recently...

Ex-Mayor Kilpatrick Facing Probation Violations, More Jail Time

Added: 2010-06-18 13:52:05

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is headed to prison, after a judge's ruling last month that he violated some of the conditions of his probation. Wayne County Circuit Judge David said today that the embattled former mayor will get credit for 120 days served, but will spend a minimum of a y...

China Suffers Spate of Violent Attacks In Recent Months

Added: 2010-06-17 09:40:10

A Chinese man opened fire in a central China court office, killing three judges and wounding three additional people before turning the gun on himself. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, the assailant was a 46-year-old man who was angry at the court for having ruled against him in a p...

TV Producer Returns to the U.S. Despite Wife's Murder Investigation

Added: 2010-06-16 10:41:23

A reality television producer has left Mexico, despite requests from Mexican authorities to remain in the country, after his wife's body was discovered during their vacation. Bruce Beresford-Redman was questioned shortly after his wife was found dead in a sewer near the couple's Cancun resport h...

Bait-and-Switch Effort Nets Parolee Arrests for CA

Added: 2010-06-15 15:04:40

Agents with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have used a time-honored ploy—with a few modern twists—to lure dozens of parole violators back into custody. The elaborate sting was aimed at parolees who have either stopped checking in with their parole officers, are s...

Drug Use, Cronyism Alleged Against Government Regulatory Staff

Added: 2010-06-14 09:59:36

A new report issued by the Interior Department alleges that oil drilling regulators routinely violate both ethics rules and federal regulations, focusing more negative attention on the regulatory climate that may have helped contribute to the current Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe. Although the ...

Black Firefighter Applicants Win Supreme Court Backing

Added: 2010-06-11 15:07:17

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a group of black applicants, who are suing the city of Chicago for discrimination after they were denied jobs with its Fire Department. The case dates back to 1995, when some 26,000 applicants tested to join the Chicago Fire Department. The c...

Drug Maker Novartis to Pay $250 Million in Punitive Damages

Added: 2010-06-10 11:05:58

A federal jury in Manhattan has ruled that pharmaceutical giant Novartis must pay punitive damages—to the tune of $250 million—to thousands of sales representatives against whom it discriminated on the basis of gender. The plaintiffs in the case had sought between $190 million and $285 million....

Kidnapper in Elizabeth Smart Case Receives 15-Year Sentences

Added: 2010-06-09 09:54:15

The woman who was convicted in the infamous kidnapping of teenager Elizabeth Smart has been sentenced to two prison terms of 15 years each—one as the result of federal charges, and one on state charges. Wanda Barzee, 64, will most likely serve her sentences concurrently, at the Federal Medical...

Suspect in Disappearance of American Teen Arrested for Murder in Peru

Added: 2010-06-08 15:04:09

A Dutch citizen who is strongly suspected in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway has been detained by Chilean police in connection with a killing in Peru. Joran van der Sloot, 22, was apprehended while traveling by taxi to Vina del Mar, a coastal city in central Chile, a...

TV Chef Cooked Up Plot to Murder His Wife, Say Cops

Added: 2010-06-07 10:10:16

Police in Santa Monica, tipped off by one of the city's homeless men, have arrested a former television cooking show host on suspicion of orchestrating a murder-for-hire scheme. Juan-Carlos Cruz, 48, is the former host of two television shows on the Food Network, Calorie Commando and Weighing I...

D.C. Prosecutors Seek Answers In Bizarre Murder Mystery

Added: 2010-06-04 16:19:31

A bench trial is scheduled to begin next week in the mysterious death of a Washington, D.C. lawyer—but the three defendants are charged with obstruction of justice and tampering of evidence, but not with murder. The death of Robert Wone, 32, has gripped the nation's capital because of its unus...

Mojave Desert Cross, Center of Supreme Court Case, Is Stolen

Added: 2010-06-03 09:18:33

A seven-foot metal cross that is intended to serve as a memorial to fallen American soldiers, and which was recently at the center of a Supreme Court case, has been stolen. The cross, one of a series of memorial crosses which have been erected in the same spot, on federal land in the Mojave Dese...

Four Alleged Al-Qaida Militants Questioned In NYC Bomb Case

Added: 2010-06-02 12:41:31

United States and Pakistani officials involved in the investigation of terrorist bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad are questioning four alleged members of a militant group with links to al-Qaida. Shahzad, whom authorities believe is the man behind a failed car bomb in New York City's Times Square e...

Polygamist Sect Leader's Daughter Caught, Charged with Murder

Added: 2010-06-01 13:26:12

A tip to the FBI has led to the capture of a woman wanted on multiple charges of murder and conspiracy, authorities announced recently. Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron was captured in the Honduran city of Moroceli, thanks to the combined effort of the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Inte...

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