Crime Newswire

abc7news.com
SFPD crime lab tech expected to plead guilty
abc7news.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- A former San Francisco police crime lab technician accused of taking small amounts of cocaine from her office in 2009 appears to be poised to conclude a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, following two mistrials with hung juries.

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LINCOLN, Neb. -- A 10-year-old Nebraska boy cared for his father for more than a week after the man slipped and hit his head in... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/megan-griffo/

Dad DAVID BRADLEY sounds like an utter sociopath. Not mentally ill per se, but deliberately into hurting a baby just for kicks.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10265442._Dangerous__dad_jailed_for_six_years_after_snapping_baby_s_arm/?ref=nt

Thornaby dad claimed voices told him to snap his baby's arm, court told

9:30pm Monday 4th March 2013

By Neil Hunter.

A BRUTE who snapped his newborn daughter's arm after being told to harm her by a voice in his head was today (Monday, March 4) jailed for six years.

David Bradley claimed he heard his dead uncle urging him to hurt the four-week-old as he was changing her at his partner's home.

Bradley fled from the house in Stockton but later handed himself in to police, telling them: "I'm mental. The voices told me to do it."

Teesside Crown Court heard how the father-of-five went on a two-day drink and drugs bender before giving himself up last October.

The 26-year-old walked into a police station 30 miles away in Newcastle, where he was punching himself in the face and sobbing.

Judge Tony Briggs branded the attack "appalling" and told the once-promising art student he was "a significant danger" to children.

Bradley, of Bale Drive, Thornaby, near Stockton, will be on licence for an extended five-year period after his prison release after pleading guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent and child cruelty.

The court heard how the baby's mother had no idea of the injury until Bradley confessed to police, and the girl was then taken to hospital.

Prosecutor Rachel Masters said she has made a full recovery and doctors do believe there will be any long-lasting effects.

Sean Grainger, mitigating, said: "There does not appear to be any premeditation. There appears to be a lack of it.

 "He was changing the child and he says he did hear this voice from a deceased uncle to commit the offence, and he went on to do it.

 "He was shocked and dismayed at what he had done. He said in interview 'Oh my god, what have I done?"

The court heard how Bradley has been assessed by psychiatrists, who say he does not suffer from a mental illness - but is dangerous.

Judge Briggs said: "I am satisfied you are a high risk to children.

"I am supported in that by your clear inability to control your consumption of alcohol and cocaine, and your professed indication that for some particular time you have felt under instructions to harm or kill others."

NEW YORK — A tailor who counted star athletes including Rickey Henderson and Wilt Chamberlain among his clients has pleaded guilty to skirting about $2... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-cahners-hindman/

Dad is identified as JOHNNY HERRERA. No mention of a mother in the home.

http://www.kcbd.com/story/21475593/lubbock-toddler-in-critical-condition-father-now-charged

Lubbock toddler in critical condition, father now charged

Posted: Mar 04, 2013 6:06 PM EST Updated: Mar 04, 2013 7:17 PM EST

By Tiffany Pelt

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Lubbock Police say a toddler is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries and her father is now behind bars.

Police arrested 27-year-old Johnny Hererra on Sunday and charged him with intentional injury to his 16-month-old daughter.

Police say EMS was called to Hererra's Cedar Ridge apartment Saturday around 10:30 p.m. in reference to a child that fell. When first responders arrived at the scene, the child was unresponsive and not breathing.

While at the hospital, doctors evaluated the toddler and called police saying the injuries were consistent with abuse.

Sunday, Hererra was arrested. He is currently at the Lubbock County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond. Police say his bond is set at half a million dollars because of the child's critical injuries.

Catch J.D. Tuccille Discussing the NYPD's Pre-Crime Youth Tracking on RT at ...
Reason (blog)
Catch J.D. Tuccille Discussing the NYPD's Pre-Crime Youth Tracking on RT at 5:24 pm ET · J.D. Tuccille| Mar. 5, 2013 4:14 pm. The New York City Police Department has developed a novel approach, identifying kids it sees as potential troublemakers and ...

CODY, Wyo. — Two teens charged in a triple homicide in a small Wyoming town told investigators they stole a trove of handguns from a... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-mccormack/

We've reported on this case several times over the past few years, and the utter judicial travesty that allowed this POS of a father to gain custody.

Dad is identified as RYAN MCCONNIEL.

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20130305/BUSTED/303050014

Weeping dad draws maximum term in Lauren's death

Mar 5, 2013

Written by Douglas Walker

_____________________________________________

Key players in the Lauren McConniel tragedy

Lauren McConniel, 5: Lauren lived in Muncie with her father, Ryan McConniel, stepmother Brittany McConniel, and Brittany’s family from August 2009 to March 2010. Authorities said the child was severely abused and neglected during that time period, eventually dying in an Indianapolis hospital — three years ago this Saturday — after she was brought there emaciated and comatose, and after apparently ingesting a fatal amount of salt.

Ryan N. McConniel, 36: Father of Lauren McConniel. Ryan was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for his role in the neglect, abuse and death of 5-year-old Lauren. He struck a plea deal with prosecutors in 2011, providing statements that led to the convictions of his now-ex-wife and her family.

Brittany McConniel, 27: Then-wife of Ryan McConniel and stepmother of Lauren McConniel. Considered the main perpetrator of the child’s abuse and neglect, Brittany received the harshest sentence, 50 years in prison, in August 2011 after a jury found her guilty of neglect of a dependent resulting in death. Brittany and Ryan McConniel have since divorced.

Robert E. Lee, 46: Stepfather of Brittany McConniel and step-grandfather to Lauren, he lived in the South Ebright Street house with the McConniels, his wife and their daughter Samra. Co-defendants said Lee, accused of molesting his stepdaughter years earlier, suggested many of the methods used to punish Lauren. He was sentenced last June to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding, assisting or causing neglect of a dependent resulting in death.

Angela Lee, 47: Britanny’s mother and wife of Robert E. Lee, Angela was charged with aiding, inducing or causing neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a Class A felony that carries a maximum 50-year sentence. Under a plea agreement, she was sentenced Monday to 30 years.

Samra Lee, 22: Sister to Brittany McConniel and daughter of Robert E. and Angela Lee. Samra pleaded guilty to aiding, inducing or causing neglect of a dependent, and last October received a sentence of two years.
_______________________________________________

MUNCIE — Five days shy of the third anniversary of their daughter’s death, Lauren McConniel’s parents had a showdown Monday afternoon in Delaware Circuit Court 5.

Ryan McConniel, now 36, spent most of a 90-minute hearing weeping — before and after he received a 20-year prison term for his role in the abuse, neglect and death of his daughter, who was 5 when she died on March 9, 2010.

His ex-wife, Amber Huggins, recalled that she once loved McConniel, but said in the wake of their daughter’s death, she felt nothing but “pure disdain, disgust and hatred” for her former spouse, who sat sobbing about 10 feet from her, his face for several minutes planted on top of his left arm.

“Daddies are supposed to be a little girl’s king, her protector,” Huggins said. “Ryan, however, was Lauren’s nightmare.”

At that hearing — and a Monday morning hearing that saw Delaware Circuit Court 5 Judge Thomas Cannon Jr. sentence McConniel’s former mother-in-law, Angela Lee, to 30 years in prison — prosecutors recounted how Ryan McConniel, at the urging of his in-laws, took custody of Lauren in August 2009, motivated by the anticipation it would lead to their household receiving child-support payments.

For the next seven months, Lauren was brutally punished and starved, largely by McConniel’s then-wife, Brittany, and her own stepfather, Robert E. Lee. Emaciated and comatose by the time she was brought to an Indianapolis hospital, the child would never regain consciousness.

Ryan McConniel struck a deal with prosecutors in 2011, pleading guilty to a neglect charge that carried a maximum 20-year sentence, and giving authorities the statements needed to convict his wife, her mother and stepfather and their other daughter in Lauren’s death.

Calling her ex-husband “cowardly pathetic,” Amber Huggins said her surviving children “are the only reason Ryan and his family of monsters are alive.”

“I will love her until my last breath,” Huggins tearfully said of Lauren. She lost custody of her daughter in an Arkansas court hearing in which she didn’t have legal representation. During the girl’s months in Muncie, Huggins made futile attempts to find her daughter for visits, not seeing her again until she lay dying in the hospital.

Delaware County Prosecutor Jeffrey Arnold called McConniel “the most gutless, empty father and human being that I’ve ever seen.”

He also said he would “go to my grave wondering if I did the right thing” in negotiating a plea bargain with McConniel in order to secure the other convictions.

Arnold’s chief trial deputy, Eric Hoffman, called McConniel a “spineless wimp,” noting his claims he failed to protect Lauren from his wife and her family because he was physically intimidated by them.

“It’s truly pathetic that all of us in the courtroom have more compassion for a child that we never met than her own father,” Hoffman said.

Public defender John Brooke said he couldn’t argue his client wasn’t “the person most responsible” for Lauren’s fate. He asked the judge to impose a “fair and appropriate sentence,” saying McConniel’s fear of his co-defendants was “not an excuse” but a “fact of life.”

For his part, a sobbing McConniel offered his apologies to “my children, and the Lord, and to Amber and her family.”

“I guess I am just a worthless father like they said,” he told the judge. “But I did try to protect her and help her. But I didn’t do enough.”

In issuing the 20-year sentence, Judge Cannon noted McConniel’s “depraved indifference” to what was happening to his child.

At the earlier sentencing hearing for Angela Lee, Huggins said her daughter’s months with the McConniels and Lees were spent “in terror, in fear, in pain, in horror, in hunger.”

Hoffman noted it was Lee’s idea for Ryan McConniel to take custody of Lauren in pursuit of child support to help finance their household.

“God forbid she get a job!” Hoffman said. “She hasn’t worked since 1996.”

He also noted Lee had indicated she hadn’t interceded on Lauren’s behalf because she was “too busy on the computer talking to men on the Internet.”

Arnold called Lee and her co-defendants “truly worthless.”

“Are you listening to me, Mrs. Lee?” Arnold asked loudly, drawing an admonition from Cannon to address his comments to the bench.

Defense attorney Kelly Bryan asked the judge to consider his client’s troubled childhood, alleged abuse inflicted by her husband and a psychologist’s diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

A tearful Lee — who will join her husband and two daughters in the state prison system — asked for “mercy” and “forgiveness.”

The 30-year sentence she received was also the maximum allowed under the terms of a plea agreement.

“It’s hard to imagine that in 2010, when this century was barely starting, we were dealing in Delaware County with what has to be the crime of the century,” Cannon said at the conclusion of that hearing.

George Zimmerman's attorneys say they're abandoning their pretrial attempts to argue he's immune from prosecution in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, contending they don't have time to prepare.

Former SF crime lab tech expected to plead guilty to misdemeanor
KTVU San Francisco
A former San Francisco police crime lab technician accused of taking small amounts of cocaine from her office in 2009 appears to be poised to conclude a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, following two mistrials with hung juries. The federal court ...

Lead agent in William Jefferson's corruption case recalls victories, near-misses
NOLA.com
It was Mody who first brought Jefferson's corruption to the attention of federal investigators, Special Agent Tim Thibault says. And more importantly, it was Mody's zeal for the case and mastery of hidden-wire work -- as well as her willingness to put ...

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Previous evidence of choking is a big red flag in terms of lethality assiessments....

UNNAMED DAD.

http://www.ksn.com/news/local/story/Drunk-dad-arrested-after-hitting-daughter-during/HALV4tFa8USBwO0CHoAnyQ.cspx

Drunk dad arrested after hitting daughter during domestic dispute

Published: 11:34 am Updated: 11:44 am

WICHITA, Kansas -- Wichita police are investigating a domestic dispute that happened Monday in the 3200 block of South Clifton.

According to police, a man and a woman were arguing.

During the argument, the 13-year-old girl went to inquire what was going on.

That's when police say her father, who was upset and intoxicated, began to hit the girl.

"He was rather aggressive with her. She was thrown to the ground a couple different times as well as choked," said Lt. Doug Nolte, Wichita Police Department.

The mother attempted to get the father off the child.

She was able to call 911.

Police arrived and the father was arrested.

He was booked on several charges including child abuse, battery and criminal damage to property.

The 13-year-old girl and the mother weren't seriously injured.

Belt marks and bruising on the legs and chest of a 6-year-old child is NOT "discipline." It's battering.

Dad is identified as IGNACIO ALMANZA.

Is there a mother in this home? There sure is no mention of one.

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=868298

Harlingen father charged with child abuse after disciplining daughter

by Action 4 News Staff

A Harlingen father is out on bond amid a child abuse investigation where police said he went too far in disciplining his daughter.

Ignacio Almanza surrendered to police on an injury to a child charge on Saturday.

Investigators told Action 4 News that it all started with a Child Protective Services incident back in January.

According to police, Almanza’s 6-year-old daughter misbehaved at a local daycare prompting him to discipline her.

The girl allegedly returned the next day with belt marks and bruising to her legs and chest.

Paramedics took the girl to the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen for evaluation.

Authorities later issued a warrant for injury to a child.

Almanza turned himself in Saturday where he was issued a $33,000 dollars in bonds.

Judge in "peephole" case grants motion from Marriott

The lodging chain wants to explore Andrews's claim that convicted stalker caused her "severe and permanent emotional distress."

Erin Andrews Order

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Judge in "peephole" case grants motion from Marriott's lawyers

The lodging chain wants to explore Andrews's claim that she suffered "severe and permanent emotional distress" at hands of hotel stalker.

Erin Andrews Order

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PONTIAC, Mich. -- As a 17-year-old who had been shot by his grandmother pleaded with a 911 dispatcher to send help, the 75-year-old woman shot... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-moye/

A Florida man who allegedly beat a child for not eating vomit-filled squirrel soup was arrested Saturday. Marc Scott Smith, of Jupiter, made a breakfast... Hilary Hanson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/

Advocate.com
Sheriff: No Hate Crime Investigation for Slain Gay Candidate
Advocate.com
McMillian's family said they want his death to be investigated as a hate crime, due to the nature of the incident. However, the Coahoma County Sheriff's Department said they would not explore the option, the Clarion-Ledger newspaper reports. They have ...
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Sofia Vergara Outraged about Report on Brother's Murder, Vents on Social Media
Fox News Latino
The “Modern Family” star took to Twitter to dismiss a report from The National Enquirer last week claiming that a private investigator has new evidence involving the murder of Rafael José Vergara. The publication claimed Vergara's brother was linked to ...

Google News

An Indiana high school business teacher has admitted to writing a threatening message on a chalkboard. "Period 6 (only)," it reads: "(A) You are idiots!!!! (B) The guns are loaded!!! (C) Care to try me????" The teacher "had been absent two days prior, and he was reacting to some comments...