This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Crime

  • Anti-gun nutball pleads guilty

    This was a big story last Spring when a minor actress tried to frame her soon-to-be-ex-husband with sending ricin to the president, Mayor Bloomberg and the director of “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Shannon Guess Richardson’s husband, Nathan Richardson, is a veteran. But the media kind of lost interest in the story when it was discovered that nutball, here, is an anti-gun person, and her husband hadn’t been involved. Anyway, the Associated Press does report that she pleaded guilty to sending the poison;

    On the morning of May 20, Richardson said, she waited for Nathan Richardson to go to work.

    “After he left the house, I printed the mailing labels for President Barack Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Mark Glaze with The Raben Group,” Richardson said in the document. Glaze is director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Bloomberg’s group advocating for tougher gun control.

    The letter to Obama, according to the document, read: “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what ive got in store for you mr president.”

    “You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns,” the letter read. “Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face.”

    After mailing the letters, she admitted to trying to blame her husband and lying to authorities.

    In another article that we quoted when this started falling off the media’s radar, Richardson said that the main reason that they were having problems in their marriage is because her husband had a gun in their house and even though she was in some bloody TV show as a guest Zombie, she didn’t like firearms. So like every other good anti-gun nut, she made shit up to get her way.

  • Russian diplomats scam Medicaid

    Tom Huxton sends us a link to the BBC which reports that 49 Russian diplomats are being sought by New York prosecutors for scamming our own Medicaid system of about a million and a half bucks;

    US officials say the defrauded benefits related to pregnancy, birth and infant care. No arrests have been made.

    The suspects allegedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury goods, holidays, gigs and helicopter rides.
    ‘Shameful corruption’

    During the time of the alleged fraud, the accused were buying jewellery, clothing and gadgets at retailers such as Bloomingdale’s, Jimmy Choo, Swarovski, Apple and Tiffany & Co, according to the criminal complaint.

    It is alleged that the accused falsified household income and provided inaccurate information on Medicaid forms.

    Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, called it “shameful and systemic corruption”.

    “Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country,” he said.

    According to the Beeb, only 11 of the diplomats sought are still in the US, the rest have returned to their home country. And, oh, yeah, the Russian government will have to approve the arrests, so, this is me not holding my breath for justice for the American taxpayers.

  • UNH gunman in court

    William Dong, the 22-year-old who sparked a 4-hour lock down at the University of New Haven, Connecticut is being held on a half-million dollar bail for carrying a Bushmaster rifle on that campus. I don’t know how he did it, because the campus is a gun free zone and the Bushmaster is banned in Connecticut. Don’t tell me that the gun laws didn’t work, because that would be the first time. According to Fox News;

    No shots were fired and no one was injured in the scare at the University of New Haven campus in West Haven, which was locked down for more than four hours while police arrested Dong and searched the school grounds. Several nearby public schools also issued shelter-in-place orders as a precaution.

    Police said Wednesday that they were not sure why Dong brought the guns to campus, and State’s Attorney Kevin Lawlor declined to comment on a motive.

    Police described his weapon as a “Bushmaster .223 Assault Rifle with a collapsible stock,” – a gun banned under state law, The Hartford Courant reported. A loaded 30-round magazine was in the rifle, police said.

    Maybe he tried to shoot the rifle, but it wouldn’t work in a gun-free zone in a state where it is illegal to be possessed. because guns are supposed to know that stuff, ya know, because people aren’t responsible for their actions in the presence of a scary black rifle. He also had two handguns;

    In addition, William Dong, 22, had 2,700 rounds of ammunition at his home along with newspaper clippings about the 2012 Colorado theater shooting that left 12 dead and 70 injured.

    Clearly, he was a nut of some sort, but in possession of his faculties enough that he didn’t pull the trigger and we can all be thankful for that miracle.

  • Murder in Broward County

    TSO sends us a link from Broward County, Florida about Pedro Maldonado Sr. who murdered his wife and son and then drove to the other end of the state to only fail to murder his other son;

    While the Broward County Sheriff’s Office continues to piece together a time line, detectives believe Maldonado shot and killed his 47-year-old wife, Monica Narvaez-Maldonado, and their 17-year-old son, Pedro Maldonado Jr., with a crossbow in their Weston townhouse sometime on Monday. Weston is located about 13 miles west of Fort Lauderdale.

    The sheriff’s report says Maldonado, 53, then drove about 460 miles north to Tallahassee in an attempt to kill his older son, José Maldonado, who attends Florida State University.

    “His dad did try to shoot him with the same handheld crossbow and the arrow hit Jose’s ear,” Dani Moschella, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, told CNN affiliate WSVN. “Then his father tried to choke him, and José luckily was able to get away.”

    I’m outraged by this. If I lived in the United Kingdom, I’d probably write some screed about how we should regulate crossbows by turning back the clock on the technology in their construction, limiting the number that we can purchase, start crossbow buy back programs and forbidding the police to auction off the crossbows that they buy back and burying your crossbow with your earthly remains when you die, hopefully of natural causes.

    But, when I prepared to write that screed, I realized that I don’t live in the United Kingdom nor do I own any crossbows, so I really don’t have any dog in this fight. So, I’ll just shut up now.

  • Navy Yard Shooter Had Classifed Access Suspended Six Weeks Before Shootings

    I’m sure all TAH regular readers remember the Washington Navy Yard shooting a couple of months ago.  Well, as Alice in Wonderland might have said – the more we learn, the more this one gets “curioser and curioser”.

    The shooter was a man named Aaron Alexis.  He apparently had a long history of questionable behavior, including multiple indications that his “headspace and timing” (e.g., mental stability) was a bit . . . off.

    Well, now it seems as if the shooter’s company had reason to doubt his suitability for access to classified information – and his sanity.  The Army Times is reporting that the month prior to the shooting Alexis’ employer suspended his access to classified information because of concerns about his mental health and/or conduct.

    Alexis’ employer – a firm called “The Experts”, based in Fort Lauderdale, FL – apparently suspended his access for two days in August 2013 after receiving word of an altercation between Alexis and police in Rhode Island.  They reinstated his access to classified material two days later.  The firm apparently never notified the Navy of the incident.

    Less than six weeks later, Alexis went “off the rails” crazy and gunned down 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.  The shooting spree was ended when he was killed by police.

    “Curioser and curioser” is right.  IMO someone has some serious ‘splainin’ to do here.

  • Charlie Carlson’s death threats

    The other day we ran a “feel good story” about Charlie Carlson, a 75-year-old cancer patient who ended up killing young Gypsy Watt who, along with a 16-year-old accomplice, broke into Mr Carlson’s home to steal his pain medication. Chief Tango sends us an update to that story;

    Now, the Pine County Sheriff says Carlson is the target of death threats from people who knew Watts.

    Sheriff Robin Cole tells Eyewitness News they are already investigating one juvenile who is in jail on an unrelated offense and are waiting to hear if the Pine County Attorney will charge that juvenile with terroristic threats against Mr. Carlson.

    Sheriff Cole says several other people, using social media sites, have made threats of harming Mr. Carlson, and says “we will hunt those people down and we will charge them with terroristic threats when we find them.”

    Sheriff Cole says posting threats on the Internet has made it easier for investigators to find the perpetrators and gather evidence to possibly arrest them and charge them with terroristic threats.

    I hope Washington Minnesota’s statute is a bit more toothy than Maryland’s and that their prosecutors take the law seriously. I’d encourage Gypsy’s pals to avoid Mr Carlson’s home since it appears to me that he has plenty of range time and ammo.

  • Knockout game backfires

    Jeff sends us a link on Facebook about the “knock out game” which has been in the news lately. It’s not really a game – it’s blindsiding innocent people, mostly black teens punching out white people. Well, in Lansing, Michigan, a teen tried it on a guy waiting for his daughter at a bus stop. But, the innocent fellow happened to be armed and shot the teen twice and now the player is cooling his heels in jail.

    When Marvell Weaver approached the father to taze him, he had no idea that his intended victim was legally carrying a handgun for self-defense.

    When the attempted ‘hit” failed, the father simply pulled out his fully-registered and legal handgun, and calmly shot Weaver twice. Weaver was then imprisoned, given a trial and [pleaded] guilty to his crime.

    Well, Marvell learned his lesson and he’s probably the target of the game in his new environment.

  • Phillip C. Cassamassima; specialized VA lawyer arrested

    PHILLIP C. CASS AMASSIMA - MUGSHOT - 1-1

    Mary sends us links to the story of Phillip C. Cassamassima and Dora Richards who were arrested this week in Brevard County, Florida for scamming veterans. It looks like he posed as a lawyer who specialized in helping veterans file for their benefits with the Veterans’ Administration according to Florida Today;

    Cassamassima collected the victim’s personal information, including his date of birth, social security number, military records, marriage certificate and son’s birth certificate. He then attempted to charge the victim another $1,500, but did him a “favor” by lowering it to $300.

    The victim would be expected to pay this later and was informed that the defendant wins 90 percent of his cases, and he should expect to receive between $10,000 and $250,000 in benefits in return for the defendant’s legal services.

    The victim then underwent a medical examination by defendant Dora Richards, who falsely portrayed herself as a registered nurse and “Intake Coordinator” for the company. The victim’s wife became suspicious of the exam due to her occupation as a registered nurse.

    So, police arrested the clown when the victim paid him the $300 along with Richards. Someone who sent the tip to Mary says that Cassamassima has an extensive criminal record which includes time in the hoosegow for indecency with a child, grand theft, larceny and forgery.

    DORA RICHARDS - FLORIDA - LARCENY SWINDLE - 1

    Yeah, you don’t need a lawyer to file your claim with the VA, you only need a VSO representative – they do it for free.