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Alex "Reds" Rivera, a suspected drug kingpin who once kept a petting zoo of farm animals in his Kensington neighborhood, has been convicted of heading a narcotics network that for years distributed heroin and cocaine along North Lawrence Street and West Indiana Avenue. A federal jury handed up its verdict Monday night, capping a two-week trial that included testimony from several of Rivera's top associates, dozens of secretly recorded conversations, and surveillance and law enforcement reports of controlled drug buys from Rivera and others. In his closing argument to the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney David L. Axelrod, one of the prosecutors in the case, described the businesslike nature of the Rivera operation, which he said was selling about $18,000 worth of crack cocaine a week for...
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Danilo "Triste" Velasquez and two fellow MS-13 gang members blocked the way of a car carrying four people near the Daly City BART station before opening fire with semi-automatic handguns
The leader of a street gang was convicted by a federal jury Tuesday in connection with the shooting death of a college student, who the killers mistakenly believed was a rival, officials said. Danilo "Triste" Velasquez and two fellow MS-13 gang members blocked the way of a car carrying four people near the Daly City BART station before opening fire with semi-automatic handguns, officials said. When the shooting ended on Feb. 19, 2009, Moises Frias, 21, was dead and two others were wounded. Velasquez was convicted of three counts of conspiracy and a gun charge in San Francisco federal court, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag. When he is sentenced Feb. 14, Velasquez faces a mandatory term of 10 years behind bars. Velasquez and his associates targeted the car because...
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Wife found Gary Speed's body, inquest hears
Wales football manager Gary Speed was found hanged at his home by his wife, an inquest was told today. The 42-year-old father-of-two was found dead at his Cheshire home on Sunday morning. Detective Inspector Peter Lawless, of Cheshire Police, told Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg that Speed's body was found by his wife Louise just before 7am. He said there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances and a post mortem examination found Speed's death was caused by hanging. Mr Rheinberg said: "I adjourn this inquest until January 30, 2012. The inquest will be heard in Warrington and will commence at 2pm." There was a huge media presence at the inquest in Warrington but members of Speed's family did not attend. The coroner asked the media to "respect the privacy" of Speed's family....
Saturday, 26 November 2011
TWO families are rejoicing after two men held in a Spanish prison were set free after four-and-a-half months
Kyle Thain, 24, and James Harris, 29, have been released on bail from Font Calent jail in Alicante.This has left family members and friends overwhelmed – and they haven’t given up hope of getting them back to Britain for Christmas.Kyle’s brother Jay, 29, said: “This is the best I have felt in a long while. It’'s amazing news.”Sharon Harris, 56, Kyle’s mother, and husband Dave, 58, sold their Southend home to help fund the legal fight.Yesterday, £8,000 was transferred to Spain for each of the lads’ bail.Kyle of Sandringham Road, Southend, and James, of Pelham Road, Southend, have been held without charge since July 8. They are accused of attempted murder after two men were stabbed during a bar brawl near Alicante, close to where they were staying on a lads’ weekend away. They were arrested...
Spanish savings bank directors suspected of fraud
Spanish savings bank has fired two directors and is investigating two former executives for allegedly syphoning off €20 million ($26.5 million) into secret pension funds, the bank said Saturday. The board of directors of Caixa Penedes bank had "required the departure" of its president, Ricard Pages, and director general Manuel Troyano. It said both men had agreed to leave, the bank said in a statement. The decision comes after state prosecutor for the northeastern region of Catalonia, Teresa Compte, said her office was investigating all four on suspicion of involvement in illegal activity. Regional newspaper La Vanguardia said the case was the first time prosecutors had investigated senior executives for "criminal responsibility" in their handling of a savings bank. The prosecutor named...
Friday, 25 November 2011
A woman claiming to be the ex-wife of Colonel Gaddafi's captured son Saif al-Islam has emerged in Ukraine with extraordinary stories alleging domestic violence and womanising.
Nadia, a blue-eyed brunette claims to have met him when she worked as a stripper in a top Moscow nightclub, and says she is currently in hiding, fearing for her life.She claimed that as she prepared for marriage to Saif, she had to fly to Paris to have an operation to 'restore' her virginity. ''The doctor proved my innocence in the presence of Saif's aunt. Then I embraced Islam,' she added.'I tried to have a normal family, but Saif wanted to live as a single man with lovers and orgies,' she said in a Ukrainian newspaper interview.While there is no proof of her claim of have married and divorced Saif after two years, her claim appears to be taken...
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Mexico army seizes Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman drug lord's $15 million
Mexico's army seized nearly $15.4 million from the organization of the country's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, officials said Tuesday, marking a rare financial blow to cartels. The seizure was revealed the same day U.S. border police revealed the third discovery in a week of drug-smuggling tunnel under the border with Mexico. In Mexico, the military said it found the cash was found in a vehicle on Nov. 18 in the northern border city of Tijuana and that it was linked to Guzman's operations. The haul marked the second-largest cash seizure by the military since President Felipe Calderon sent the country's armed forces out to battle drug cartels in 2006, the statement said. Some $26 million was captured in September 2008 in Culiacan, the capital of Guzman's home state...
Inquest told how householder stabbed intruder as he waved knife
householder, who stabbed to death a burglar trying to break into his cannabis factory, told an inquest he did not mean to harm anybody. Barry Day said he remembered grabbing a kitchen knife as the door to his house, in Beckside Road, Lidget Green, Bradford, was being kicked in, sticking the knife through a hole in the door and waving it. Shazad Habib-Ur Rehman, 32, suffered a stab wound to the chest and died in Bradford Royal Infirmary five days after the incident, in October last year. Mr Day, giving evidence yesterday at the inquest into Mr Rehman’s death, said he was not aware he had stabbed someone and did not intend to harm anyone. He said he was in fear. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Atkinson, of West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, told the Bradford hearing...
Gaddafi spymaster ‘must face trial over IRA crimes
VICTIMS of Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism in the UK have called for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s former spy chief to be tried in the International Criminal Court for his part in republican atrocities. Libya’s interim government reported on Sunday that Abdullah al-Senoussi had been captured. The interim government is keen to try him in Libya but international concerns have been raised about the possibility that he may not receive a fair trial. Representatives from the International Criminal Court are visiting Libya in order to make representations. Former intelligence minister Senoussi was seen as the right-hand man of dictator Gaddafi, who was killed shortly after his capture by rebel forces last month. IRA victims campaigners Willie Frazer and London-based Jonathan Ganesh believe Senoussi...
Murder trial begins for two Hells Angels, five others
two full-patch Hells Angels, made their first appearance in a Vancouver courtroom Monday for the June beating death of Kelowna resident Dain Phillips. The men - Hells Angels members Robert Thomas and Norm Cocks - as well as Cocks' father Robert, Anson Schell, Thomas Vaughan and brothers Daniel and Matthew McRae were charged with second-degree murder two weeks after the fatal assault on Phillips on June 12. They made their initial appearances in Kelowna Provincial Court, where five of the accused were released on bail. But Crown prosecutors have decided to proceed by way of direct indictment, meaning the case goes straight to B.C. Supreme Court without a preliminary hearing at the Provincial Court level. And prosecutors have moved the case to Vancouver, where the accused appeared Monday...
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Latin Kings charged in Texas slaying
Fifteen members of the Almighty Latin Kings have been indicted for alleged roles in 19 murders, including slayings of juveniles and a pregnant woman. One of the murders was in Big Spring, Texas, according to the indictment, made public Friday. The murders were done to control gang territory and further their illegal activities, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The indictment also alleges that two Chicago police officers robbed people for the gang, sometimes while in uniform, the Sun-Times reported. Several Latin King members already had been convicted in connection with a 2008 drive-by shooting in Big Spring where six people were shot with an AK-47. The victims included a woman who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time. She and another victim died of their wounds, the department...
Devastating report into the failures of police and care agencies to protect teenage girls who have been groomed, raped and sold by male gangs, most of whom are Asian.
The mother of one teenager from Leeds, who attempted suicide after a gang rape, said her daughter was the victim of a 'broken system.''Everyone failed her,' she told The Times. 'There was no sharing of information. 'They (police) had the names and knew where they (abusers) worked yet the men who did this have never once been arrested or spoken to by the police.'West Yorkshire Police vowed to look again at the case to see if 'there is evidence that can help bring evil men to book'.Growing worry: CCTV footage shows now jailed gang members Mohammed Romaan Liaqat and Abid Mohammed Saddique meeting girls as they cruise the streets of Derby in...
Monday, 21 November 2011
Defeat Your Ego Before it Defeats You
“He’s so full of himself” is a statement of derision. The irony of life is that whoever said it is probably full of herself too. Such is life. But does it have to be that way? While it is too much to expect to change others, you can certainly reduce your own ego and I recommend it. What few gains I have made in ego reduction have greatly increased a deep and lasting sense of well-being in my life. That is why I consider this topic top priority for both happiness and success training. First, what is ego? There are many different definitions, so I will clarify. I don’t mean that ego is your self, otherwise killing ego would be killing yourself, a terrible misunderstanding. Instead, I mean it is an illusory concept of self, inflated beyond reality. In this sense, killing your ego gets...
Sunday, 20 November 2011
For reasons still obscure, the program and the fellowship of AA could cause a surrender which in turn would lead to a period of no drinking.
It became ever more apparent that in everyone's psyche there existed an unconquerable ego which bitterly opposed any thought of defeat. Until that ego was somehow reduced or rendered ineffective, no likelihood of surrender could be anticipated. AA, still very much in its infancy, was celebrating a third or fourth anniversary of one of the groups. The speaker immediately preceding me told in detail of the efforts of his local group—which consisted of two men—to get him to dry up and become its third member. After several months of vain efforts on their part and repeated nose dives on his, the speaker went on to say: "Finally, I got cut down to size and have been sober ever since," a matter of some two or three years. When my turn came to speak, I used his phrase "cut down to size"...
Murder in the Rooms of AA
One AA sponsor was falsely implicated in the slaying of a prostitute, while another was gunned down after divulging someone's top-secret "fourth step" confession. Just how protected are you when helping people who may be mentally ill—or even dangerous? Killing the messenger Confessing less-than-savory acts to a trusted AA sponsor is not an unusual scenario for most people during the early days of their recovery. A “fearless moral inventory,” in fact, is one of the backbones of the 12-step program. But what would you do if someone confessed something to you in an AA meeting that went far beyond the bounds of the usual the usual...
Hollywood star Natalie Wood was screaming for help as she drowned
Hollywood star Natalie Wood was screaming for help as she drowned, according to a witness whose account has never been disclosed.Retired stockbroker Marilyn Wayne has told The Mail on Sunday she tried to report the star’s ‘last desperate cries for help’ but was ignored.Los Angeles police last week said ‘substantial new evidence’ has led them to reopen their investigation into the death 30 years ago this week. Mystery: Natalie drowned after a row while drinking with husband Robert Wagner and co-star Christopher WalkenThe West Side Story actress’s drowning off the coast of California was ruled accidental at the time. Now a police source...
