Other officials behaving badly
Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2023 11:20 pm
Charlotte Mail Carrier Suspended After Calling 911 In Medical Emergency
WBTV News - Charlotte
22 Dec 2023
US Postal Service reversed course after WBTV’s questions
Falsehoods Unchallenged Only Fester and Grow
https://thefogbow.com/forum/
Charlotte Mail Carrier Suspended After Calling 911 In Medical Emergency
WBTV News - Charlotte
22 Dec 2023
US Postal Service reversed course after WBTV’s questions
Lubby Navarro, ex-Miami-Dade School Board member, accused of lavish spending on district credit card
By Alfred Charles
Updated on: January 11, 2024 / 9:44 PM EST / CBS Miami
MIAMI -- Former Miami-Dade Public Schools Board member Lubby Navarro was arrested Thursday after she was accused of using a schools-issued credit card to charge at least $100,000 in personal expenses that included lavish travel trips and shopping sprees, the state attorney's office said.
Navarro, 49. was booked into the Miami-Dade County jail on two counts of grand theft and two counts of fraud, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said during an afternoon news conference in which she detailed the allegations in a 91-page criminal complaint.
The news conference also featured images of Navarro leaving big box retailers with a shopping cart filled with merchandise that was allegedly paid for with her county-issued credit card.
Rundle said bond had been set at $2 million and that Navarro faced between three to 55 years in prison if the former elected official is convicted of the charges.
In a written statement, Navarro's attorney said she was innocent.
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/lubb ... ion-probe/
New York tops list of US state payouts over wrongful imprisonment
State has paid out $322m to settle wrongful incarceration claims, ahead of Texas, Maryland, Connecticut and Michigan
Gloria Oladipo in New York
Wed 17 Jan 2024 14.00 CET
New York has paid out the most of any state in the US to people wrongly incarcerated, according to a new study.
The latest research was produced by High Rise Financial, a pre-settlement legal funding company.
The company analyzed data from the National Registry of Exonerations, a database on exonerated people in each state that has been regularly updated since 1989. The registry also tracks how much each state has paid out to wrongfully incarcerated people.
New York state has paid out a total of $322m to those wrongfully incarcerated. The state has awarded 237 claims for wrongful imprisonment out of 326 exonerated people. Such payouts cost New York taxpayers $15.97 per person, also the largest per capita payment out of any state, the study found.
Texas, Connecticut, Maryland and Michigan were the other states in the top five that paid out the most to exonerated people.
Texas paid out the second highest amount, awarding a total of $155m to 128 people out of 450 people exonerated.
The most recent study comes as the amount of exoneration has steadily increased in recent years, according to Maurice Chammah, a journalist with the Marshall Project and author.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... rcerations
Florida guardian suspended from more than 30 cases amid allegations
ABC Action News
8 Mar 2024
For more than a decade, the ABC Action News I-Team exposed problems with Florida’s professional guardianship system in our award-winning series “The Price of Protection." Last week, we were there when Collier County professional guardian Kathy Johnson was suspended from more than 30 cases amid allegations of missing money, lost records, and hacked bank accounts. “At best this is mismanagement. At worst it’s something more,” said Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Krier.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation finds DNA scientist manipulated data in hundreds of cases over decades
Emma Tucker and Andi Babineau, CNN
Sun, March 10, 2024 at 12:12 AM GMT+1·5 min read
A now-former forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) manipulated or omitted DNA test results in hundreds of cases, an internal affairs investigation found, which prompted a full review of her work during her nearly 30-year career at the agency.
The CBI released the findings of the investigation into Yvonne “Missy” Woods Friday, which concluded Woods’ handling of DNA testing data affected 652 cases between 2008 and 2023, including posting incomplete results in some cases. A review of her work from 1994 to 2008 is also underway, according to the CBI.
“This discovery puts all of her work in question, and CBI is in the process of reviewing all her previous work for data manipulation to ensure the integrity of all CBI laboratory results,” the agency said. “CBI brought in third-party investigative resources to protect the integrity of the inquiry.”
Woods, a 29-year veteran of the agency’s crime lab, was placed on administrative leave in October after the CBI became aware DNA sample testing performed by Woods “may have deviated from standard operating procedures,” the agency said. She didn’t perform any laboratory work thereafter and retired on November 6, it said.
A separate criminal investigation into Woods’ conduct is ongoing, and the CBI said it continues to work with law enforcement agencies across the state.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser declined to comment on the criminal case against Woods when contacted by CNN on Friday.
The CBI internal investigation, which was conducted in collaboration with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, did not find Woods falsified DNA matches or fabricated data. It revealed Woods had omitted material facts in official criminal justice records, thus tampering with DNA testing results, and violating agency policies ranging from data retention to quality control measures, the agency said.
“Public trust in our institutions is critical to the fulfillment of our mission,” said CBI Director Chris Schaefer. “Our actions in rectifying this unprecedented breach of trust will be thorough and transparent.”
Analyst trained ‘generations’ of scientists, attorney says
In a statement to CNN on Friday, Woods’ attorney Ryan Brackley said the findings support Woods’ earlier statements that “she’s never created or reported any false inculpatory DNA matches or exclusions, nor has she testified falsely in any hearing or trial resulting in a false conviction or unjust imprisonment.”
Brackley said his client has been a “loyal and dedicated forensic scientist” during her time at the agency and has worked with and trained “generations” of prosecutors, scientists and law enforcement agents.
The agency said its forensics team discovered Woods deleted and altered data that served to conceal evidence of her tampering as well as her failure to “troubleshoot issues within the testing process.” The agency said Woods’ manipulations “appear to have been the result of intentional conduct.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/colorado-bur ... 34662.html
(original: CNN)
Homeless Services workers among 18 NYC employees arrested in COVID benefit fraud bust
Thursday, March 7, 2024
NEW YORK (WABC) -- At least 18 New York City employees were arrested on Thursday for allegedly stealing identities to get financial benefits during the COVID pandemic.
The suspects are accused of impersonating homeless people at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and using their names to illegally get their pandemic benefits.
Some of those homeless people died during the pandemic.
The suspects include five Department of Homeless services workers, as well as employees of the NYPD, MTA, USPS and NYCHA.
Prosecutors believe they are responsible for obtaining nearly $1.2 million in fraudulent benefits between April 2020 and October 2021.
Officials say approximately 170 people had their identities stolen.
It is alleged that the five DHS employees got shelter resident information from paper and digital files and shared them with the group.
"Stealing the identities of New Yorkers, many of them homeless, and defrauding a critical social safety program during one of the most challenging times in our city's history is downright shameful and we allege criminal," said District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Prosecutors say they were looking into a DHS employee who may have been manufacturing ghost guns when investigators discovered the other alleged fraud.
https://abc7ny.com/fraud-pandemic-homel ... /14500016/
Louisiana coroner accused of child abuse cuts sexual assault exam program
Christopher Tape, indicted in 2022 before charges were dismissed, says office will stop giving exam that helps collect key evidence
Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans
Tue 26 Mar 2024 10.00 CET
Having been elected with no opposition despite prior charges of child molestation, the chief medical examiner of a south-east Louisiana community with more than a quarter-million residents took office on Monday, poised to deliver on a pledge to eliminate an agency program that has helped collect key evidence in cases of sexual assault.
Dr Christopher Tape, 53, is expected to ultimately face an effort from voters to subject him to a recall election and force him from office, the top local government official in St Tammany parish has told the outlet, which exposed the new coroner’s criminal history.
But that drive to remove Tape must clear a relatively high procedural threshold now that he’s in place at the parish – or county, in Louisiana parlance – coroner’s office.
Tape was indicted in New Mexico in 2002 on charges that he sexually assaulted his then girlfriend’s daughter, who was seven at the time, as local TV station WWL Louisiana first reported in February. A court in that state later found prosecutors took too long between arresting and indicting Tape – who was a medical school student at the time – and tossed the charges, saying his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been unduly compromised.
Eventually, Tape landed work at the St Tammany coroner’s office – which primarily handles investigations of deaths in the parish with a population of about 270,000 but also offers a range of other services, including mental health commitments and sexual assault nurse examinations.
Tape in August signed up to run to take over the $11m office, and the incumbent – Dr Charles Preston – declined to seek re-election. No one else came forward as a candidate, meaning Tape was automatically elected to succeed Preston.
But the transition from Preston to Tape in an office that is roughly 50 miles (80km) north of New Orleans has been anything but smooth.
First, in October, Preston fired Tape, accusing him of improperly disclosing medical test results and violating the office’s confidentiality policies, as the local news site Nola.com reported.
Then, on 11 February, WWL Louisiana investigative reporter David Hammer not only revealed that a technicality had spared Tape from being tried on six charges of child sexual assault in New Mexico, WWL also uncovered how Tape in 2022 had struck an out-of-court settlement with a 26-year-old employee at his private forensic pathology practice who alleged that he made unwanted sexual advances toward her.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... am-program
Yeah our coroner is a funeral home owner. His opponent had campaign signs out: [I can't remember her name] - Your Last ResponderTiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 12:15 pm The history of the coroner, who was not traditionally a doctor, versus a physician medical examiner is fascinating.
That, in fact, has happened:
AB 1608 died in committee; it didn't pass.One of the main impetuses behind the introduction of Assembly Bill 1608 was the 2020 death of Angelo Quinto, a 30-year-old Navy veteran living in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Antioch who died three days after an Antioch police officer knelt on his neck for five minutes.
The Contra Costa County coroner — part of the sheriff's department — investigated Quinto's death for eight months before ruling the death an accident and listing the cause of death as “excited delirium.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/28/ ... -stations/Ex-Caltrain employee, contractor charged with building secret homes at train stations
Former deputy director and co-defendant allegedly misused public funds to construct clandestine residences inside Peninsula stations
Mass. woman's fight with RMV takes final, unexpected twist
WCVB Channel 5 Boston
4 Apr 2024
She fought for months with the RMV over a wrongfully suspended license. But just when she thought the issue had been resolved, she received another suspension letter in the mail.
Tacoma PD charges wrong man following woman's attack | FOX 13 Seattle
FOX 13 Seattle
12 Apr 2024
Robert Lee Wiltfong, 50, is roughly the same height and weight as the suspect in the Tacoma Police investigation. However, he’s 10+ years older than the victim's ex-boyfriend, who is accused of attacking her and is missing the telltale face tattoo that is described in at least one of the police reports associated with the incident. He was arrested and told to appear in court for a crime he didn't commit due to a mix up in a police report.
A very long time ago when I was about 17, hanging in a friend's back yard, doing some damn thing or the otber, a couple cops came around the corner of the house, looked at me, then hooked me up. I don't remember my reaction, but it was something like WTF? I was told tbat I matched the description of someone breaking windows at a local school and as they were putting me in the squad, my friend's Grandma intevened, saying I'd been there all afternoon. Eventually I was released and it turned out the actual culprits were a three brothers ages 7, 9, and 11.RTH10260 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 4:03 am DA office missed details too
Tacoma PD charges wrong man following woman's attack | FOX 13 Seattle
FOX 13 Seattle
12 Apr 2024
Robert Lee Wiltfong, 50, is roughly the same height and weight as the suspect in the Tacoma Police investigation. However, he’s 10+ years older than the victim's ex-boyfriend, who is accused of attacking her and is missing the telltale face tattoo that is described in at least one of the police reports associated with the incident. He was arrested and told to appear in court for a crime he didn't commit due to a mix up in a police report.
There are too many cops who think a crime is solved if they manage to arrest and preferably convict someone, while forgetting that it's the actual perpetrator they should find and deal with.
Baltimore city defaulting on contractor payments, over a million dollars unpaid
WBFF FOX45 Baltimore
24 Apr 2024
An Inspector General's report reveals the city of Baltimore has failed to pay city contractors tens of thousands of dollars.
"We found instances where the job was completed and 4 1/2 years later, they still hadn't been paid for the job," said Inspector General Isabel Cumming.
Party of law and order.John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 3:39 pm Andrew "appointed dumbass" Bailey, Missouri AG, is planning on suing New York for convicting trump:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ngNewsSerp
Missouri's attorney general announced Thursday that he's suing the state of New York for alleged election interference and wrongful prosecution over former President Trump's hush money case.
Why it matters: It marks the beginning of what's expected to be the next wave of legal action after an N.Y. jury found the presumptive Republican presidential nominee guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, with red states suing on Trump's behalf.