money Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

Chinese National Indicted for Money Laundering Conspiracy Connected to Scam That Impersonated Federal Officers and Employees

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 03 May 2025 03:00:26 +0000

Binghui Liu, a citizen of China formerly residing in San Jose, has been charged with a money laundering conspiracy.

Source link

The post Chinese National Indicted for Money Laundering Conspiracy Connected to Scam That Impersonated Federal Officers and Employees appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Five Alleged Sinaloa Cartel Money Launderers Charged

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 02 May 2025 02:41:42 +0000

Two federal grand jury indictments were unsealed in San Diego against five alleged Sinaloa Cartel money launderers.

Source link

The post Five Alleged Sinaloa Cartel Money Launderers Charged appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Los Angeles Man Sentenced for Money Laundering

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 05:57:26 +0000

Daniel Hooker, 36, of Los Angeles, has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for his role in a money laundering conspiracy.

Source link

The post Los Angeles Man Sentenced for Money Laundering appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Florida woman allegedly filmed sex act with dog for money

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 05:19:16 +0000

Logan Guminski (Marion County Sheriff’s Office).

A Florida woman was recently arrested after she allegedly sexually abused her Chihuahua on video for profit, police in the Sunshine State say.

Logan Nichole Guminski, stands accused of one count each of sexual activity involving an animal and filming sexual activity involving an animal, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office says they learned of the crime on Jan. 28, when a detective who works with the major crimes unit received an “anonymous tip” that the defendant “posted a video to Instagram depicting sexual activity with a dog,” according to a press release.

The unidentified tipster apparently included a 32-second-long video clip of the offending incident in question. An arrest report contains a detailed and graphic account of what occurred in the video between a “small brown and white” Chihuahua and a woman whose face cannot be seen.

An investigation into the defendant’s Instagram account ensued.

Authorities allege the account owner, through dozens of pictures, appears to have “a body physique similar to the body shown in the video submitted in the tip in reference to skin tone, weight and stature.” Additionally, the affidavit alleges “the defendant has several photographs and videos that depict her with a small brown dog, possibly a chihuahua, that is identical to the one in the video.”

The affidavit describes the dog in depth.

“This dog is small and light brown, with large brown ears, a white line going down the middle of his head, a white belly and white fur that extends halfway up the dog’s legs,” Detective Jordyn Batt writes. “I confirmed that the dog in the video has all these same characteristics. I also located a photograph posted on April 5, 2024, that depicts the defendant with the same dog, that is wearing the same dark colored collar that is depicted in the video.

More Law&Crime coverage: Florida woman allegedly caught trying to use ‘urine from her aunt’s dog’ to pass court-mandated drug test

The tipster and detective later spoke on the phone, according to the affidavit. During their conversation, the witness described the video using colloquial terms for oral sex, said Guminski has the same kind of manicure as the woman in the video, and referenced another Instagram post in which the defendant’s ex-boyfriend took a screenshot of the video to call Guminski “disgusting.”

Both the video and the ensuing post had since been deleted, the witness told the detective. But, the witness added, they had screenshots.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Released her dogs at them’: Florida woman allegedly used Great Dane to attack investigators after stealing electricity

On March 21, Guminski spoke with two detectives and allegedly admitted to performing sex acts with two different dogs for money.

“The defendant admitted that she is a ‘content creator,’ which she described as her utilizing the Fansly platform to sell photographs and videos of herself in the nude, depicting different sexual acts to users on the internet,” the affidavit reads. “The defendant admitted to taking the video of her engaging in a sexual act with her dog, ‘Princeton,’ which she described as a brown and white Chihuahua.”

For the first video, Guminski allegedly admitted, she was paid $500 by a Snapchat user. The second video allegedly involved a yellow Labrador named “Rosie.” The affidavit does not contain additional details about the second video.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Made a mistake’: Florida woman behind bars for allegedly stabbing boyfriend’s pit bull with a pocketknife over and over because the dog was ‘bothering’ her

The defendant allegedly admitted both videos were still on her iPhone at the time she spoke with law enforcement, the affidavit claims.

Guminski was arrested shortly after speaking with detectives. She was released the next day after posting $10,000 bond, jail records show.

The defendant is currently slated to be arraigned on April 22.

Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.

“Unfortunately this isn’t my first case of this nature,” Batts told Gainesville-based ABC and The CW affiliate WCJB. “It’s always shocking, it’ll never not be shocking especially when you have to watch the video but I have seen it before so it’s not out of the ordinary unfortunately.”

Source link

The post Florida woman allegedly filmed sex act with dog for money appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Citing ‘anti-democratic takeover’ by ‘activist’ plaintiffs, Trump seeks money bond for injunction requests

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 07:06:14 +0000

Civil Procedure

Citing ‘anti-democratic takeover’ by ‘activist’ plaintiffs, Trump seeks money bond for injunction requests

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 13, 2025, 3:38 pm CDT

President Donald Trump is directing federal agencies to seek a money bond when plaintiffs file federal lawsuits against the administration that seek temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions. (Image from Shutterstock)

“In recent weeks,” Trump said in a March 11 memo, “activist organizations fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and sometimes even government grants have obtained sweeping injunctions” that meddle in executive policymaking.

“This anti-democratic takeover is orchestrated by forum-shopping organizations that repeatedly bring meritless suits, used for fundraising and political grandstanding, without any repercussions when they fail,” the memo said.

To deter frivolous litigation, Trump said, parties seeking injunctions against the federal government should be required under Rule 65(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to post security that would cover potential costs and damages from a wrongly issued injunction.

A White House fact sheet said injunctions “can cost taxpayers millions or even billions of dollars, especially when they mandate continued funding.”

Several judges have denied bond requests, including U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson of the District of Maryland, according to Bloomberg Law and Law & Crime.

Courts have frequently waived bond requirements “where a fundamental constitutional right is at stake,” Abelson wrote.

U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the District of Columbia also denied bond in a challenge to a Trump administration funding freeze, according to Bloomberg Law, Reuters and Law & Crime.

“In a case where the government is alleged to have unlawfully withheld trillions of dollars of previously committed funds to countless recipients, it would defy logic—and contravene the very basis of this opinion—to hold plaintiffs hostage for the resulting harm,” AliKhan said in granting a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs.

U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson of the District of Maryland also refused to require a bond in a challenge to anti-LGBTQ executive orders, Law.com reports.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

Source link

The post Citing ‘anti-democratic takeover’ by ‘activist’ plaintiffs, Trump seeks money bond for injunction requests appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

TikTok influence collected money for fake charity: Cops

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 23:36:40 +0000

Left: Amy Downs (Limestone Sheriff’s Office). Right: Downs, known on TikTok as slotmachinequeen or slot_7.0, allegedly scammed people out of nearly $1 million after running a fake charity (TikTok).

Alabama authorities arrested a TikTok influencer who allegedly collected nearly $1 million under the guise of a charity for domestic violence victims and the homeless.

More on Law&Crime: Florida man known as ‘Bambi’ who lured ex to cemetery where he killed her as she held their infant arrested after being recognized from TikTok video: Police

The Limestone County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that it began investigating 57-year-old Amy Dianne Elmore Downs, known on TikTok as Slotmachinequeen or Slot_7.0, in October after receiving complaints about a fraudulent charity. According to cops, Downs was accepting funds for her “charity” via her PayPal, CashApp and Venmo accounts. She allegedly claimed the funds were going to a charity that benefited the homeless and domestic violence survivors. The problem? There was no charity, deputies said. No such organization existed with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, per cops.

Downs reportedly received donations from throughout the United States and around the world. Despite not having any job since 2020, Downs deposited nearly $1 million into her bank account, authorities said.

AL.com reported that TikTok user trey-street helped blow the whistle on Downs. He spoke to one of Downs’ victims who also is a domestic violence survivor in a TikTok Box chat in late September.

“I have beat myself up for over a week,” the woman said. “I had to call and explain to my husband what I had done. That was probably the most embarrassing and hardest part… It was a cause dear to me.”

The woman had harsh words for Downs.

Source link

The post TikTok influence collected money for fake charity: Cops appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Don’t give money to law schools unless they teach originalism, conservative federal appeals judge says

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 21:40:50 +0000

Law Schools

Don’t give money to law schools unless they teach originalism, conservative federal appeals judge says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 29, 2024, 12:17 pm CDT

Judge Amul Thapar of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati. (Photo by Kyblueimages, CC-Zero, via Wikimedia Commons)

“Anti-originalist” law professors dominate law schools, and they aren’t equipping students with the practical knowledge that they need to make originalist arguments, a conservative federal appeals judge said last week in a lecture hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Judge Amul Thapar of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati said conservatives could spur change by withholding donations to the schools, report Bloomberg Law, Law360 and Reuters via the Originalism Blog. How Appealing links to the video.

Taxpayers can also play a role by demanding that publicly funded law schools stop “pursuing their own political agendas,” Thapar said, according to Reuters.

Bloomberg Law and Law360 highlighted this remark: “Make no mistake: Money talks. Only when the taxpayers and donors alike demand it will law schools start to change.”

Originalist judges interpret the Constitution based on its meaning as understood at the time it was written. Thapar, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, was on Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court short list.

Thapar said law professors at too many law schools tell their students that a court’s originalist analysis “is just a smokescreen for some nefarious political goal.”

The lack of training, Thapar said, means that lawyers are missing originalist arguments that could benefit their clients, according to Bloomberg Law and Law360.

“It’s amazing how many times my colleagues and I say, ‘If they only would have made argument X, their client might have had a chance,’” Thapar said.

Source link

The post Don’t give money to law schools unless they teach originalism, conservative federal appeals judge says appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Woman murdered parents, stashed bodies, lived on their money

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 04:36:11 +0000

Inset left: Virginia McCullough. Inset right: ugh, inset on the left; Lois and John McCullough. Background: The McCullough family home (Essex Police).

A woman who murdered her parents and then feasted on their finances for several years after hiding them in “makeshift tombs” at their own house will spend the next several decades in prison.

On Friday, Virginia McCullough, 36, was sentenced to spend at least 36 years behind bars before she is eligible for parole, according to a press release issued by the Essex Police Department in east England.

By the time the killer was apprehended, however, her guilt was never in doubt. She readily admitted to the crime — and seemingly relished the latest of several unfortunate turns when finally caught.

“Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” the murderess told arresting officers in September 2023. “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”

In June 2019, the since-condemned woman poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with a fatal cocktail of prescription medication, according to police. The pills, accumulated the months before, were crushed or cut up and then secreted into alcoholic beverages.

The day after her father died, Virginia McCullough decided it was time for her mother to go as well — in a far less surreptitious fashion. She beat Lois McCullough, 71, with a hammer, then stabbed her to death.

For the next four-plus years, the woman lived alongside her dead parents.

After the highly considered murder of her father, Virginia McCullough placed his body into a tomb “composed with masonry blocks stacked together,” according to Prosecutor Lisa Wilding, in comments reported by London-based cable news channel Sky News. On top of the tomb — constructed in her father’s former study — the killer placed “multiple blankets, and a number of pictures and paintings.”

The older woman’s body was wrapped in a sleeping bag and then placed inside a wardrobe in an upstairs room of the family home, according to the prosecutor.

“McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address,” Specialist Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Nicola Rice said. “She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parent’s money and accruing large debts in their name.”

In September 2023, the couple’s doctor finally raised concerns — prompting a law enforcement investigation that led to their daughter’s arrest. She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in July.

In the years following the murders but before the arrests, the killer “told persistent lies” about her parents’ whereabouts, according to police. She repeatedly canceled family plans — telling doctors and relatives the pair were not well, on holiday, or other long trips.

Police said the two murders and their concomitant coverups involved “vast levels of deceit, betrayal and fraud” and were carried out “on a shocking and monumental scale.”

Finally, after John McCullough failed to pick up several medications and make several appointments, his doctor sounded the alarm.

A missing persons investigation ensued.

When contacted by police, Virginia McCullough initially said her parents would return the next month. Police decided not to wait — using their “powers” to enter the residence in the Pump Hill neighborhood of Chelmsford where the family lived and died.

“McCullough was the sole occupant and instantly confessed to officers that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them,” police wrote in the press release. “Documents found at the property showed she had run up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names. After their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions.”

During her sentencing, the judge said a life sentence was the only possible option for the admitted, convicted killer, according to a courtroom report by United Kingdom public broadcaster BBC.

“There is a single sentence that can be passed upon you in these circumstances,” Judge Christopher Morgan intoned.

Law enforcement savaged the killer and remarked upon the pain her actions had caused the victims’ families.

In a statement, Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby said:

McCullough lied about almost every aspect of her life, maintaining a charade to deceive everyone close to her and clearly taking advantage of her parents’ good will. She is an intelligent manipulator who chose to kill her parents callously, without a thought for them or those who continue to suffer as a result of their loss. The details of this case shock and horrify even the most experienced of murder detectives, let alone any right-thinking member of the public. It therefore follows that the wider family of John and Lois, understandably, could never have guessed or anticipated that McCullough would be capable of undertaking these murders before committing herself to this level of deceit. They have been left utterly devastated by the circumstances of this case and they continue to feel the loss of John and Lois each and every day.

The killer’s siblings also released a statement — fondly remembering their parents as individuals and as the loving couple they were.

“Our Dad was caring and hardworking and he had a passion for education and writing,” the statement reads. “He worked tirelessly in his career in university education, which spanned many years. “Dad enjoyed lots of hobbies, with particular favorites being golf and snooker. As we think of Dad, we remember the numerous jokes he used to tell us and the laughs he gave us. Our Mum was kind, caring and thoughtful. Mum delighted in her grandchildren. She had friends from around the world through her penfriend hobby, many of whom she had written to for several decades. Mum had a passion for history, and maintained a keen interest in the royal family. Mum and Dad loved their trips to the seaside together, where they enjoyed many walks and visited lots of different attractions. Their love for the seaside was so great, they were hoping to move to the coast in their retirement years.”

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Source link

The post Woman murdered parents, stashed bodies, lived on their money appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Giuliani wants to stop talk of money he is owed by Trump

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 23:41:37 +0000

Former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani leaves the federal courthouse in Washington on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).

Rudy Giuliani is asking a federal judge in New York to stop defamed Georgia election workers from referencing any of the money he may or may not be owed by Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign — at least for another month or so.

In a late Tuesday filing, the former New York City mayor’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to bar Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss from litigating issues related to “Defendant’s alleged claim against the Trump Campaign.”

Giuliani himself previously — during his since-shelved bankruptcy proceedings — raised the $2 million claim against the Trump campaign. Meanwhile, Freeman and Moss raised the claim in the present case — an effort to enforce their defamation case judgment — in late August.

Now, Giuliani wants a preemptive-but-temporary kibosh on any further legal maneuvers related to those alleged arrears.

“The Court, in its discretion, should postpone a turnover of this claim until November 6, 2024, the day after Election Day,” the filing reads.

In December 2023, Freeman and Moss won a $148 million default defamation verdict over a campaign against the women in which Giuliani falsely proclaimed the pair were engaged in fraud and had “cheated” voters during the 2020 presidential election.

The pair have since been engaged in various forms of litigation to avail their monetary interests against the onetime federal prosecutor — including legal filings in both bankruptcy courts and district courts. They also recently sued him, again, for defamation.

Tuesday’s filing by Giuliani is stylized as a memorandum of law in opposition to the August effort to enforce the judgment.

While requesting several forms of legal relief, the motivation behind the Trump campaign backpay issue is admittedly about the upcoming presidential election and how the media might make hay out of it.

“Plaintiffs will or may use this assignment for an improper, political (or, at least, collateral) purpose, creating the confusing, and inaccurate, appearance that Defendant is now somehow suing candidate Trump, thereby generating an accompanying, and unnecessary, media frenzy,” the Giuliani memo reads. “Plainly, the value of this claim will not depreciate between now and November 6, 2024.”

Election Day is Nov. 5.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Delist’: Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to take NYC apartment off the market after defamed Georgia election workers sound alarm about ‘value-destroying conduct’

The filing also addresses recent efforts by Freeman and Moss that forced Giuliani to “delist” his New York City apartment. This, all but a volte-face, came after the plaintiffs told the court the sale price of his “most valuable single asset” dropped by $525,000.

“For many months, stretching back to the bankruptcy case, Plaintiffs have known about — and supported — Defendant’s efforts to sell this apartment,” the filing explains. “Indeed, as Plaintiffs acknowledge on this motion, the Bankruptcy Court authorized Defendant to retain Sotheby’s as his real estate broker. Plaintiffs, however, now take the position that Defendant does not have the incentive to maximize the sale price. This contention is meritless.”

Rather, Giuliani says, he intends to seek full restitution — of anything paid to Freeman and Moss — by reversing the judgment on appeal. His attorneys argue this means he “has an incentive to maximize the sale price because he has a restitution interest in that price.”

In any event, Giuliani says, the issue should be considered moot. In the filing, he consents to a third-party receiver “to effect the sale of the New York apartment.”

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Source link

The post Giuliani wants to stop talk of money he is owed by Trump appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.

Prosecutors seek to revoke Alex Murdaugh’s federal plea deal over $6M in missing money

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:19:50 +0000

Criminal Justice

Prosecutors seek to revoke Alex Murdaugh’s federal plea deal over $6M in missing money

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 2:02 pm CDT

Disbarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was sentenced in early March 2023 to life in prison after a conviction in a double-murder trial during his sentencing at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina. He was found guilty on all counts. (Photo by Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post and Courier via the Associated Press)

Federal prosecutors want to revoke their financial-crimes plea deal with disbarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh because they think that he has not been truthful about the location of more than $6 million in missing money and the possible involvement of another attorney in wrongdoing.

Prosecutors say Murdaugh was required to be “fully truthful” about criminal activity as part of the deal in which Murdaugh pleaded guilty to federal charges in September 2023 for stealing millions of dollars from clients, his law firm and the estate of his late housekeeper. He violated that promise, prosecutors say in a March 26 motion filed in South Carolina federal court.

The Associated Press and the Post and Courier have coverage of the prosecution request to hold Murdaugh in breach of the agreement.

Prosecutors had alleged that Murdaugh murdered his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in June 2021 to distract attention from his financial crimes. He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison in March 2023. Two months after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of stealing from clients, he pleaded guilty to state charges of financial crimes.

As part of the federal plea deal, prosecutors said they would recommend that Murdaugh’s federal sentence for stealing from clients run concurrently with any state sentence for the same conduct. Now, prosecutors say the government should be relieved of its obligations under the plea deal, including the recommendation for a concurrent sentence. Prosecutors now plan to recommend the maximum sentence.

The government says Murdaugh failed polygraph tests in which he was asked about the missing money and possible involvement by the other attorney, who was not named in the motion. Murdaugh did, however, admit involvement of two others in his financial crimes—former banker Russell Laffitte and disbarred lawyer Cory Fleming, the government points out.

The motion says Murdaugh can’t withdraw his guilty plea because it would unjustly reward him for breaching the plea agreement.

Murdaugh has sought a new trial on the murder charges on the ground that the elected court clerk in Colleton County, South Carolina, tampered with the jury by warning jurors that they shouldn’t be fooled by defense testimony and by meeting privately with a jury foreperson. The new trial request was denied.

Rebecca Hill, the Colleton County, South Carolina, clerk, announced her resignation Monday, the Washington Post reports.

Source link

The post Prosecutors seek to revoke Alex Murdaugh’s federal plea deal over $6M in missing money appeared first on Home Safety Tech Pros.