Fire, the great CLEANSER! Seems to be the favorite force of nature to our Demonic Ruling Class.
“DNA, things from past crimes, burglaries, shooting incidents, we have some biological evidence here as well,” Maddrey said at the press conference. “It’s mainly evidence, but we store other things there as well.”
Officials said that rape evidence kits were not stored at the facility.
“The evidence goes back a long time, 20-30 years. Some of the evidence was also property from (Hurricane) Sandy as well,” Maddrey added.
Police said they won’t know the extent of the damage until the fire is put out, a task the fire department said could take several days. But Hodgens said that he would “estimate that most of the contents are damaged by fire.”
The investigation into the cause of the blaze is ongoing.
Hodgens said that eight people, including three members of the FDNY, three EMS personnel, and two civilians, suffered minor injuries as a result of the fire.
A view of the site as a massive fire broke out at an NYPD impound and evidence storage warehouse in Brooklyn on December 13, 2022 in Brooklyn, United States.
“We attempted an interior fire attack, but the members were overwhelmed by the amount of fire and we had to back all of our firefighters out of the building and go to an exterior attack,” Hodgens said, adding that at one point, part of the building collapsed.
Fire officials are using three marine fire boats and drones to attack the fire.
“It’s a deep-seated, heavy volume of fire, that’s hard to get to the seat of the fire,” Hodgens added.
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NEW YORK (WPIX) – Decades-old evidence stored inside a New York City Police Dept. warehouse has now been completely destroyed by a fire Tuesday in Brooklyn.
NYPD officials said it will take some time to figure out exactly what was lost and the impact it will have on cold case and cases up for appeal.
The fire at the Erie Basin Auto Pound, a low warehouse situated atop a long, curving breakwater on the Brooklyn waterfront, broke out at around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said. Police Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who joined Hodgens at a briefing at the fire scene, said the facility is used to store DNA evidence from crime scenes as well as e-bikes, motorbikes and cars.
“It’s mainly evidence but we store other things there as well,” he said.
Dr. Darrin Porcher, a retired NYPD lieutenant, said the loss of evidence will tremendously impact cases where defendants are looking to appeal as well as cold cases. Cold cases are very difficult to solve and any and all evidence can be important, he explained.
“We expect the NYPD and district attorneys to provide us a full accounting of the evidence that was damaged and to immediately inform defense counsel about individual cases that may have been impacted,” a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society said.
It may take days before investigators are able to get inside as the FDNY is still working on putting out hot spots.
“We don’t know the severity of the damage inside,” Maddrey said.
On Wednesday, the cause of the blaze was still under investigation.
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Seven months after an electrical fire burned through one of the NYPD’s evidence warehouses, public defenders delivered a burning critique inside the City Council chambers.
“We have been mystified by the evidence preservation system here in New York,” said Rebecca Brown of the Innocence Project.
“The program the NYPD has in place is pure chaos,” said Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez of Brooklyn Defender Service.
“This has extremely grave consequences for our clients,” added Elizabeth Felber of the Legal Aid Society.
The attorneys who work to overturn wrongful convictions have been asking the NYPD for a list of evidence destroyed in the fire so they know which cases could be affected.
Police told CBS2 earlier this year that the fire destroyed “virtually all the evidence” stored there, with the exception of eight barrels.
The NYPD testified Tuesday that much of evidence lost in the fire had already been DNA tested, and much of it was already damaged by Superstorm Sandy.
“It is deeply concerning that the NYPD was not in a better position to track and compile a comprehensive inventory of evidence stored before the fire occurred at the end of last year,” Councilmember Kamillah Hanks said.
The NYPD says it has been telling district attorneys what evidence was stored and damaged there. The department also revealed that because the evidence dates to before 2012, the evidence records are not digitized, so officials are sifting through paper records.
The NYPD testified it wants a new, state-of-the-art evidence storage facility, but it needs more than $600 million to build it.
“It is a hefty price tag, but it would serve the department and the city for decades to come,” said Kristine M. Ryan, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of management and budget.
Police also say they’re looking into the cost of digitizing their older records, and public defenders say the fire is an example of why that should be done as soon as possible.
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Photo: Screen capture from FDYN video
The three-alarm fire broke out at about 10:35 a.m. in Brooklyn with 140 firefighters from 33 unites sent to battle the blaze, Patch reported.
“Expect smoke & traffic delays in area,” NYC officials tweeted. “People nearby avoid smoke, close windows.”
The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined and no injuries have been reported as of noon.
IN OTHER NEWS: ‘They can’t handle the truth’: Marjorie Taylor Greene rants at critics of ‘armed’ insurrection speech
The facility is the holding location for vehicles seized for reasons other than small traffic or parking infractions.
The NYPD website explains a “vehicle might be brought to the location following the arrest of the vehicle’s operator, or if the vehicle is part of an investigation or has been seized for legal reasons.”
The cause of the fire remained unknown and no injuries had been reported as of about 11:45 a.m., according to the FDNY and NYPD.
Police are also asking for public help and asking for photos or videos that could help them determine the cause.
See some of the videos of the fire below or at the link here.
#FDNY members are currently operating at a 3-alarm fire at 700 Columbia Street in #Brooklyn. FDNY operations are ongoing. pic.twitter.com/MLLTprliyv
— FDNY (@FDNY) December 13, 2022
Massive fire at the NYPD’s evidence facility in Red Hook https://t.co/n49FYcYOWk pic.twitter.com/gHNznQq5Xo
— myles miller (@MylesMill) December 13, 2022
WATCH: NYPD Evidence Center Erupts In Flames, Partially Collapses with ‘Combustible’ Material Inside
Large amounts of smoke could be seen around the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn on Tuesday after a fire broke out at an NYPD evidence center in the neighborhood.
Footage and images captured of the fire were quickly posted to social media.
Massive fire at the NYPD’s evidence facility in Red Hook https://t.co/n49FYcYOWk pic.twitter.com/gHNznQq5Xo
— myles miller (@MylesMill) December 13, 2022
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NYPD Chief John Hodgens elaborated on the “combustible materials” when speaking to the press, revealing there were e-bikes, motor vehicles, and biological evidence. He confirmed evidence from past cases was affected, but said nothing specific can be known until the fire is completely put out.
To Watch The Video Beow: CLICK THE LINK https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1YqKDolODdexV
Hodgens said it’s an “active investigation,” but did reveal authorities know so far the fire did not start at the ground level. The officer said contractors were inside the warehouse and noticed the fire. Officials also said a portion of the evidence center collapsed. Multiple injuries were reported, but all of them were described as minor.
The evidence warehouse was primarily used for motor vehicles and evidence that for one reason or another could not be stored in multiple other facilities the department uses.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
Massive fire breaks out at NYPD impound, evidence warehouse in Brooklyn
NYPD said cold-case evidence stored at the warehouse goes back years but the magnitude of what was destroyed is not yet known
RED HOOK, Brooklyn (WABC) — A massive fire broke out at an NYPD impound and evidence storage warehouse in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, leaving several people injured and some evidence destroyed.
The fire appears to have started at an 8,000 square-foot warehouse on Columbia Street that is part of the Erie Basin Marine Pound.
There were 15 NYPD employees on the property at the time the fire broke out, but they all escaped.
Plumes of thick, black smoke billowed into the sky as scores of firefighters poured water on the warehouse from every direction.
At one point, an explosion triggered a partial collapse of the building and units were forced to back out.
As crews use drones and boats to work to put out the fire, officials say it’s possible it could still burn for days before it’s fully extinguished.
Officials with the FDNY said at least eight people were injured, but they were all believed to be minor injuries. That included three firefighters, three with EMS and two civilians.
Go to the Webpage to view the following video: CLICK HERE
The severity of the damage to the warehouse is not yet known, but once it is safe, investigators will determine the cause of the fire and survey the extent of the damage.
NYPD officials said cold-case evidence stored at the warehouse goes back years but the magnitude of what was destroyed is not yet known.
That could include evidence of what the department considers a historic nature, more than 10 years old, from cases that have already been adjudicated. Problems could arise if any of those cases are appealed in the future.
“DNA, things from past crimes, burglaries, you know, maybe shooting incidents, we have some biological evidence as well,” said NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.
Authorities emphasized that rape kit evidence is stored elsewhere and was not lost in the fire.
Other evidence includes historic vehicles, including those of officers killed in the line of duty, that are traditionally brought out during the annual ceremonies.
Go to the Webpage to view the following video: CLICK HERE
The building is one of five warehouses where the NYPD stores vehicles that are confiscated. They also use the warehouse to store evidence that is too large to fit in normal storage areas.
Some of the vehicles being stored in the warehouse include ATVs and electric bikes, but the NYPD takes special precautions to detach the lithium-ion batteries so they don’t catch fire. The NYPD hosted a demolition of ATVs and dirt bikes at the location back in 2016.
There are also thousands of NYPD vehicles parked on the connecting pier.
“It’s a very serious and damaging fire,” Maddrey said. “We won’t really know the magnitude of what was destroyed in there until we have an opportunity to look at the invoice and see what was in there and then see what we can salvage and then we’ll go from there.”
As with the 2012 damage from Sandy, investigators will learn of evidentiary issues on a case by case basis as they come up.
But they said there is nothing from current or pending criminal cases, with the exception the seized vehicles believed to have been stored there.
“We expect the NYPD and district attorneys to provide us a full accounting of the evidence that was damaged and to immediately inform defense counsel about individual cases that may have been impacted,” Redmond Haskins of the Legal Aid Society said in a statement.
FDNY first got a call reporting the fire at around 10:37 a.m., and there were around 150 fire and EMS personnel at the scene as of Tuesday afternoon. Hodgens said the fire is likely to last a few days before it can be fully extinguished.
Hodges said firefighters tried to combat the blaze from inside the warehouse, but they were “overwhelmed” by the flames and forced out. Three fireboats are also spraying water at the inferno.
An article by the New York Times asks a moral question: “The New York Police Department’s primary motivation for collecting DNA is to legally identify the correct perpetrator, build the strongest case possible for investigators and our partners in the various prosecutors’ offices, and put an end to the victims and their families.”
The city medical examiner’s office, which manages the database, said it complied with applicable laws and was operated “with the highest scientific standards” set by independent accrediting bodies.
However, civil liberties advocates and privacy groups are questioning the methods used to collect the DNA. The DNA database has come under fire in recent years for tactics used by police to collect DNA samples, often without a person’s consent, lawyers say. The department’s guide to detectives asks detectives to offer a bottle of water, soda, cigarette, gum, or food to a person being questioned in connection with a crime whose DNA is wanted – and recover the object once they are gone.
The civil liberties advocates and privacy groups have argued that progress comes at the expense of communities of color, infringes on the rights of people who have not been convicted of crimes and exposes them to a risk of wrongful conviction if mistakes are made.
“You can change your social security number if you are a victim of identity theft. You can’t change your DNA,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “You create this constant threat not for months, not for years, but the rest of your life, that you can be targeted by this information.” SOURCE
You can learn more at https://bit.ly/3ixxiFe.
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It was December of 2014, and Michael Usry had no idea why a pair of Louisiana State police officers showed up at his New Orleans home, asking him to accompany them to the precinct for questioning.
He was even more confused when an FBI agent asked to swab his cheek for DNA.
“They wouldn’t tell me anything,” Usry, now 43, tells The Post. “I was like, ‘Am I being accused of a crime? Do I need a lawyer?’ ”
It was only later that Usry, a low-budget filmmaker, learned he was a suspect in the 1996 murder of 18-year-old Angie Dodge. There were a few things that pointed to him: He’d visited Idaho Falls, Idaho, where the victim was killed, during the same time frame of the murder. He had directed a 2010 film called “Murderabilia,” which — according to the search warrant — “dealt with some sort of homicide or killings.”
But the main reason cops showed up on Usry’s doorstep was his DNA. When genetic evidence from the crime scene didn’t match anything in the national law-enforcement database, the police ran a familial DNA search on Ancestry.com, the world’s largest for-profit genealogy company.
They found a close match between semen found at the murder scene and the DNA of Usry’s dad, who had donated his saliva to Ancestry as part of a genealogy project with his church. When the elder Usry was deemed too old to be a suspect, it led detectives to his son. Although the younger Usry had never used Ancestry or any other genealogy service, his dad’s DNA was enough for a judge to issue a warrant.
Even after Usry’s DNA was tested and his name cleared — which took weeks — he didn’t rest easy.
“I know that my personal genetic information is still in the FBI criminal database,” he said. “They’re not going to just throw it away because of their mistake. But what are they doing with it?”
Use of direct-to-consumer DNA tests have exploded over the past decade, with an estimated 100 million people worldwide sharing their genetic information with companies like AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and FamilyTreeDNA. All that DNA has been a boon to law-enforcement agencies, who’ve discovered that “investigative genetic genealogy” is far more effective if searches aren’t restricted to DNA left at a crime scene.
By just uploading the genetic profile of a suspect to a genealogy website, where thousands of users have freely shared their DNA information to find out more about their ancestry, detectives are able to map out a criminal’s entire family tree and zero in on their identity.
A number of success stories have emerged from this tactic, most famously Joseph James DeAngelo — the so-called “Golden State Killer,” a serial killer and rapist who terrorized California during the late ’70s and early ’80s — who was finally caught in 2018 when crime scene DNA was partially matched to the murderer’s great-great-great-grandparents with online genealogy database GEDmatch. More recently, these public databases helped solve the 60-year-old murder of a Girl Scout in Colorado, a 1975 stabbing in Lancaster, Pa., and uncovered the identities of both a killer and his victim from 1988.
Americans are mostly in favor of this new crime-solving tool, with 48% saying it’s fine for DNA companies to share customers’ genetic data with police, and just a third objecting to the idea, according to a Pew Research study from June 2020.
Mitch Morrissey, a former District Attorney in Denver, Colo., thinks the public is right not to be alarmed. At the moment, he said, only two commercial DNA databases can be accessed by law enforcement: GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA. And their privacy policies require users to opt out if they’re uncomfortable with their information being used. “It’s a 100% voluntary system,” Morrissey said. (Meanwhile, after Ancestry was used by police to find Usry’s father, the free searchable database was discontinued because, according to the company, it’d “been used for purposes other than that [for] which it was intended.”)
But others, like Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, find these database searches “not just invasive but unconstitutional.”
Recent controversies back him up. Earlier this year, the San Francisco police department got caught using DNA collected from sexual assault victims to identify them as suspects in unrelated property crimes. And detectives have used blood collected from newborns to investigate criminal cases everywhere from California to New Jersey.
And those are just the cases we know about. “It’s the Wild West,” said Cahn. “We have no idea how these tools are being used.”
Brandy Jennings of Vancouver, Wash., wasn’t sure what to think when, in early 2019, she started getting Facebook messages from strangers, congratulating her on helping to solve a murder from four decades earlier.
(Left) Biechler was stabbed 19 times and found with a knife sticking out of her neck. Her case lay cold for years until Virginia-based Parabon NanoLab used genetic data to develop a suspect composite that eventually led to Sinopoli.Lancaster County District Attorney
“My first emotion was confusion,” she told The Post. “I was happy but confused.”
The murder, she soon learned, was a brutal stabbing of an 18-year-old girl in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, back in 1979. The case remained unsolved until investigators matched Jennings’ DNA — which she’d uploaded to GEDmatch a few years earlier, to learn more about her late father’s family — to DNA evidence found at the crime scene.
This genetic paper trail led them to the killer, 65-year-old small business owner Jerry Lynn Burns from Manchester, Iowa, and a distant second cousin to Jennings that she’d never met or even knew existed.
At least in hindsight, Jennings, a 40-something home health-care assistant, says it “feels like an invasion of privacy” that police used her genetic information without her knowledge, but “I figured I just didn’t read the terms and conditions of the site and it was my own doing.”
She’s more concerned that she wasn’t eligible for the $10,000 reward offered by the victim’s family for information leading to an arrest. “I could really have used that $10,000,” she said.
The US Department of Justice tried to set guidelines for investigative genetic genealogy in 2019, requiring “informed consent” from non-suspects before their DNA can be collected. But the policy mainly covers cases involving federal authorities like the FBI.
“FBI agents may only ask for matches from companies that tell their consumers they allow law enforcement access, which narrows down the available databases considerably,” said Christopher Slobogin, director of Vanderbilt Law School’s criminal justice program, who’s studied the Fourth Amendment and privacy issues for 30 years.
But on a state level, well, it depends. “As the Golden State Killer case demonstrated, if police are otherwise at a dead end, they will certainly be tempted to resort to whatever the law allows them to do with DNA samples,” said Slobogin
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DNA Evidence: Basics of Analyzing | National Institute of Justice
the general procedure includes: 1) the isolation of the dna from an evidence sample containing dna of unknown origin, and generally at a later time, the isolation of dna from a sample (e.g., blood) from a known individual; 2) the processing of the dna so that test results may be obtained; 3) the determination of the variations in the dna test …
Introduction to Touch DNA Evidence for Sexual Assault Groping Cases …
Overview: The Importance of Touch DNA Evidence in Sexual Assault Groping Cases video series is presented by Dr. Julie Valentine and Heather Mills as a companion to the Journal of Forensic Nursing article entitled “Evidence Collection and Analysis for Touch DNA in Groping and Sexual Assault Cases.”. This three-part video series aims to introduce viewers to the significance of touch DNA evidence …
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Collecting DNA Evidence – Crime Scene Forensics
Forward to the forensic lab ASAP The proper collection and storage of biological evidence for DNA testing includes the following: 1. Biological evidence should be allowed to air dry before packaging. – ideally, it should be hung up in a clean dry room, away from direct sunlight 2. Biological evidence should be packaged in paper bags.
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PDF Modern Methods of Collection and Preservation of Biological Evidence …
Keywords: DNA, physical evidence, human identification. 1. Introduction During the past few decades, physical evidence has become increasingly important in criminal investigations. Courts often view eyewitness accounts as unreliable or biased. Physical evidence, such as DNA, fingerprints, and trace evidence may independently and objectively link a
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Hair DNA – Testing, Forensic Analysis and Tools
Mar 7, 2022 Hair DNA testing is carried out to check for paternity and forensic investigation. In a forensic laboratory, the governing bodies have their way of extracting the DNA successfully in a given hair sample. They have the best testing techniques and resources. Usually, in a crime scene, the hair sample does not have the roots attached to it.
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DNA Evidence: Basics of Identifying, Gathering and Transporting
Nuclear DNA from blood and semen stains more than 20 years old has been successfully amplified (copied) using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and subsequently analyzed. Samples that have been stored wet for an extended period of time may be too degraded for DNA analysis and should be checked using PCR.
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The Misuse Of Dna Evidence In Homicide Cases | Researchomatic
The Misuse of Dna Evidence In Homicide Cases Introduction As a new technology in criminal justice, DNA is reforming the criminal justice system, in that it can help solve crimes with unprecedented accuracy. DNA evidence is based on small samples of genetic material from individuals that are collected at the scene of a crime, tested, and stored …
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NYPD accused of illegally obtaining, storing the DNA samples of nearly 32,000 people
A federal lawsuit claims the genetic material is stored in a “suspect index.”
The database turns thousands of people, primarily Black and Latino people, into “permanent criminal suspects,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan.
Plaintiff Shakira Leslie was one of the nearly 32,000 individuals who had DNA taken without her knowledge, the lawsuit says.
In 2019, Leslie was 23 and had left a cousin’s birthday party when police pulled over the car she was riding in for a traffic violation, the lawsuit says. There was a gun in the car and everyone was arrested, it says.
At the precinct, the lawsuit says, officers deprived Leslie of food and water for more than 12 hours so when she was finally offered a cup of water, she immediately drank it.
Leslie was released and the charges against her dropped, but not before the NYPD collected her drinking cup and took her DNA, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the Legal Aid Society on behalf of Leslie and a second plaintiff. It names as defendants several top officials at the NYPD and the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which maintains the DNA database.
“Ms. Leslie never offered, and was never asked for, her consent to have her DNA taken. And the NYPD did not obtain a warrant or court order before secretly taking her DNA and sending the sample to OCME to perform DNA testing,” the lawsuit says, arguing the DNA collection and analysis violates the plaintiffs’ rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The police routinely offer people who are being questioned about a crime a beverage, a cigarette or chewing gum and then collect DNA from the items, the lawsuit says. The suit claims the genetic material is stored and cataloged in a “suspect index” that puts people’s DNA profiles through “a genetic lineup that compares the profiles against all past and future crime scene DNA evidence — all without obtaining a warrant or court order to conduct these DNA searches.”
MORE: Missing girl known as ‘Little Miss Nobody’ identified after more than 60 years
“Thousands of New Yorkers, most of whom are Black and brown, and many of whom have never been convicted of any crime, are illegally in the City’s rogue DNA database, which treats people as suspects in every crime involving DNA,” said Phil Desgranges, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society. “We simply cannot trust the NYPD to police itself, and we look forward to judicial review of these destructive practices to bring our clients the justice they deserve.”
The New York City Law Department told ABC News it would review the lawsuit.
A spokesman for the NYPD, Sgt. Edward Riley, said the department would also review the lawsuit but said that DNA collection is among the best practices of law enforcement.
“Behind every time the NYPD collects DNA from a suspect in a criminal investigation, there is a crime victim who is suffering and seeking justice. The driving motivation for the NYPD to collect DNA is to legally identify the correct perpetrator, build the strongest case possible for investigators and our partners in the various prosecutor’s offices, and bring closure to victims and their families,” Riley said in a statement provided to ABC News.
“The local DNA database complies with all applicable laws and is managed and used in accordance with the highest scientific standards set by independent accrediting bodies that have regularly reapproved the existence of the database,” the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said in a statement.
MORE: NYPD officers face discipline due to alleged Black Lives Matter protest misconduct
The Legal Aid Society says in the lawsuit that the database violates state laws that limit DNA indexing and “hoards the DNA of arrestees and suspects” without oversight and often at the expense of people of color.
“Black and Latinx people make up the vast majority of arrestees who are subject to the City’s DNA taking and indexing practice,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief to end the City’s practice of targeting thousands of individuals, many of whom have never been convicted of a crime, to take their DNA and turn them into permanent suspects.”
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Over the past decade, the DNA laboratory in the office of New York City’s chief medical examiner emerged as a pioneer in analyzing the most complicated evidence from crime scenes. It developed two techniques, which went beyond standard practice at the F.B.I. and other public labs, for making identifications from DNA samples that were tiny or that contained a mix of more than one person’s genetic material.
As its reputation spread, the lab processed DNA evidence supplied not only by the New York police, but also by about 50 jurisdictions as far away as Bozeman, Mont., and Floresville, Tex., which paid the lab $1,100 per sample.
Now these DNA analysis methods are under the microscope, with scientists questioning their validity. In court testimony, a former lab official said she was fired for criticizing one method, and a former member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science said he had been wrong when he approved their use. The first expert witness allowed by a judge to examine the software source code behind one technique recently concluded that its accuracy “should be seriously questioned.”
Earlier this year, the lab shelved the two methods and replaced them with newer, more broadly used technology.
The medical examiner’s office “has engaged in negligent conduct that undermines the integrity of its forensic DNA testing and analysis,” the Legal Aid Society and the Federal Defenders of New York wrote the inspector general on Friday. Because the lab has kept problems with its “unreliable” testing and “unsound statistical evidence” secret from the public and the courts, they continued, “innocent people may be wrongly convicted, and people guilty of serious crimes may go free.”
In addition to those convicted using the disputed methods, many defendants may have chosen to plead guilty when they learned prosecutors had DNA evidence against them. Their cases face significant barriers to reconsideration.
The medical examiner’s office stands by its science. Its chief of laboratories, Timothy Kupferschmid, said that the discarded techniques were well-tested and valid, and that the lab was adopting newer methods to align with changing F.B.I. standards. He compared it to a vehicle upgrade.
“So just because we’re switching to the new model, I mean, our old pickup truck worked great, but my new pickup truck is so much better,” he said.
One case that hinges on the disputed DNA techniques stemmed from the beating of Taj Patterson in December 2013. A group of Hasidic men attacked Mr. Patterson, a black student, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Prosecutors blamed the attack on the Shomrim, a Hasidic group that patrols Williamsburg, a neighborhood where tensions between orthodox Jews and blacks have long simmered.
Six days after the attack, the police found one of Mr. Patterson’s black Air Jordan sneakers on a nearby roof.
The police sent the sneaker to the DNA lab, where a technician swabbed a 3-inch by 6-inch area of its heel — and recovered 97.9 picograms of DNA from at least two people. A picogram is one trillionth of a gram.
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To watch the video on the website: CLICK HERE
Within a few months of our clients having been arrested, after a five day investigation on a double homicide and no forensics, within days, there was evidence that someone else committed this crime,” defense attorney Rita Dave said. “And yet all the police reports and all the documents generated in that investigation were withheld from our clients.“
The three men proclaimed their innocence throughout the trial and over the decades since, even though then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed for the death penalty and then-District Attorney Richard Brown sought it.
“The job of the district attorney is to ensure that justice is dispensed fairly, and the Conviction Integrity Unit exists to safeguard the process,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “Nearly 25 years ago, two families lost their loved ones to senseless violence and in the aftermath, three men were improperly convicted of their murders. The case now goes to our Cold Case Unit.”
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Nov 30, 2021 NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) —NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — More information is being released about the suspect arrested this week in the cold case murder of a teenage girl in the Bronx.
What is now Bay Plaza Mall was once a Bronx video store where, in 1999, the body of 13-year-old Minerliz Soriano was found stuffed in a back alley dumpster.
Police say she was sexually abused and strangled.
“It has been 22 years since her life was cruelly taken, but detectives never gave up,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said.
Joseph Martinez was arrested Monday and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
READ MORE: NYPD Arrests Joseph Martinez Of New Rochelle In 1999 Killing Of Bronx 13-Year-Old Minerliz Soriano
Investigators say the 49-year-old New Rochelle resident goes by the name “Jupiter Joe” and has a YouTube page which shows him teaching children astronomy on the street.
Sources tell CBS2’s Ali Bauman at the time of the murder, Martinez was living in the same Bronx apartment as the teenage victim and was even questioned by investigators after her death but was not considered a suspect at the time.
“There was DNA present on the victim, and it was an unknown donor, which means the person is not identified. He’s not in any known database,” retired NYPD detective Malcolm Reiman said.
Reiman was on the case from the beginning. Determined to solve it, even when the case went cold, he began pushing for familial DNA testing to be used when the new technology emerged.
“If the perpetrator’s relatives are in the database, it will actually indicate that the relative is in the database,” Reiman said.
That’s exactly how detectives tracked Martinez down.
“When familial DNA search was introduced, familial DNA searching is a deliberate search using specialized software for a relative. So we searched this particular DNA profile, and as a result, we had a forensic familial DNA search hit to the father of the defendant,” said Emanuel Katranakis, commanding officer of the NYPD Forensic Investigative Unit.
This is the first time the technique has led to an arrest in New York City. Reiman says its success is a game changer.
“This is something that’s going to change the way that homicides are looked at,” he said.
Martinez pleaded not guilty.
When Bauman sat down with the victim’s family on Monday night, they had one question.
“I’d like to say to him, why?” said Amelia Soriano, the victim’s aunt.
It’s an answer the family will have to keep waiting for as investigators have not shared a motive.
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NYPD Source: Weiner Laptop Has Enough Evidence “to Put Hillary … Away …
Sex crimes with children, child exploitation, money laundering, perjury, and pay to play, reads the partial list of crimes that, claim New York City Police Department sources, could “put Hillary and her crew away for life.”
Shocking evidence of such criminality has been found on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, claim the sources, which was seized from him by NYC officials investigating his allegedly having sent sexually explicit texts to a 15-year-old girl. Moreover, Hillary Clinton’s “crew” supposedly includes not just close aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her husband, Weiner, but other aides and insiders — and even members of Congress. According to True Pundit:
NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to:
| • Money laundering
• Child exploitation • Sex crimes with minors (children) • Perjury |
• Pay to play through Clinton Foundation
• Obstruction of justice • Other felony crimes |
NYPD detectives and a [sic] NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices.
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
These allegations, if true, could explain why Director Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, a move that shook the political world and caused Comey to come under fire. As the NYPD chief put it, the new e-mails contents truly are “alarming.”
True Pundit also says that, according to FBI sources, both Abedin and Weiner are trying to cut immunity deals with federal officials and that, if they didn’t cooperate, they’d face long prison sentences. Abedin’s turning state’s evidence would no doubt be devastating for Clinton, as the two women have for years been joined at the hip. Abedin has at times been like Clinton’s shadow, has been called her “body woman,” and has even been rumored to be Clinton’s lesbian lover. So Abedin likely knows where, as is said, the bodies are buried.
Of particular note, the new e-mails allegedly contain information revealing that Hillary, Bill Clinton, Weiner, and numerous congressmen took trips to convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, where he is said to pimp out underage minors of both sexes to prominent people. The trips were taken aboard Epstein’s Boeing 747, dubbed the “Lolita Express”; the pedophile’s island, in the US Virgin Islands, has been called “Sex Slave Island.”
These revelations would also explain why Clinton used powerful software called BleachBit to scrub damning information from her private server. According to BleachBit’s website, its program gives criminals and others the ability to “shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery.”
Yet it can’t scrub bumbling perverts from your personal life, and Weiner’s laptop also contains incriminating e-mails revealing the mishandling of classified information by Abedin and Clinton, say the sources. Both women “sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts,” and this information could have been “accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers … of unknown individuals,” writes True Pundit.
Consequently, according to True Pundit, FBI sources say the new Clinton investigation has been broadened and now includes matters such as how:
• Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner’s email
• Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails.
• Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records
• Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents
• [a] private consultant managed Weiner’s site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain’s listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
If the new allegations in the True Pundit story are all accurate, they just add more intrigue to a presidential campaign that is truly unprecedented, with a torrent of WikiLeaks and Project Veritas revelations and now Clinton’s Weiner woes. From vote fraud to inciting violence to child sex abuse to pay-for-play to perjury, it’s becoming clear to many that the Democratic Party — and the Clintons in particular — are essentially a criminal syndicate. As former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom said in a Sunday interview, “The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically. It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool…. God forbid we put someone like that [Clinton] in the White House.” And now we know better why, as I wrote Sunday, this “appears standard FBI sentiment. I personally know of an ex-agent — someone with knowledge of Clinton ‘crime family’ dealings — who I’m told is having trouble sleeping at night due to the prospect of a Clinton presidency.”
All these revelations raise important questions: How could Hillary Clinton and her cohorts have bumbled so badly that they appear a cross between Inspector Clouseau and Boss Tweed?
And if Clinton is so careless with her own personal survival, how can she be trusted with national survival?
Part of the explanation is general incompetence, yet there’s another factor: Both Clintons have engaged in continual criminality over the decades — and have been allowed to skate at every turn. This lack of accountability has led to complacency and ever-increasing brazenness, just as with a child never punished for wrongdoing.
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Victims: Feds Hid ‘Sweetheart’ Deal for Sex Offender With Deep Political Ties
Financier Jeffrey Epstein had past links to Donald Trump, Bill Clinton.
— — New court filings are bringing fresh attention to a Florida sex scandal that could become grist for political trouble in the 2016 Presidential campaign.
The new legal filings allege that federal prosecutors in Florida “repeatedly” and “intentionally” violated the rights of dozens of teenage sex abuse victims by secretly negotiating an “extraordinarily lenient” deal with a wealthy Palm Beach financier known in the past to have socialized with powerful business and political figures — including former President Bill Clinton and current GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
Prosecutors went to great lengths to keep secret the non-prosecution agreement reached in 2007 with Jeffrey Epstein, attorneys for the victims allege, “because of the strong objection they would have faced from victims of Epstein’s abuse, and because of the public criticism that would have resulted from allowing a politically-connected billionaire who had sexually abused more than 30 minor girls to escape … with only a county court jail sentence.”
Throughout the negotiations — and for nearly a year after the agreement was signed — the victims were kept in the dark, their attorneys said, strung along as government lawyers promised victims they were still investigating even long after they had cut Epstein an “indulgent” deal.
The Epstein scandal has been tabloid fodder for years because of allegations that he maintained friendships with an array of powerful world figures while at the same time allegedly paying high school girls for illicit massages and sex. Epstein has maintained that he did not know the women were minors and claimed that many of them lied about their age.
But with his victims back in court to challenge the government’s handling of the case, there is new attention on Epstein’s ties to two men who find themselves facing the glare of a presidential campaign — Bill Clinton, husband of Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, and Trump, who is currently leading the GOP primary race.
Before any allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced in 2005, Trump and Bill Clinton spoke glowingly of Epstein, and court records have included documents and testimony suggesting both men flew with Epstein on his private jets.
Court files document long-running ties between Epstein and the former president. Bill Clinton flew on at least six trips with Epstein and his entourage in 2002 and 2003 including to international destinations such as Paris, Bangkok and Brunei, according to logs kept by one of Epstein’s pilots.
And as Epstein first faced federal prosecution a few years later, one of his lawyers, Gerald B. Lefcourt, wrote to prosecutors to tout Epstein’s pedigree as “part of the original group that conceived of the Clinton Global Initiative,” according to a letter attached to Wednesday’s court filing.
At the heart of this week’s court filings is a deal Epstein reached with federal prosecutors in September of 2007 that spared him from a federal prosecution. After an extensive investigation by the Palm Beach police and the FBI, the Justice Department effectively immunized Epstein for multiple alleged offenses involving underage girls in exchange for his guilty pleas to two comparatively minor sex crimes in Florida state court. And Epstein’s lawyers persuaded the federal government to keep the terms of the agreement secret, according to the court filing by victims’ attorneys Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell.
On the day the deal was signed, an attorney for Epstein sent an email to the federal prosecutor handling the case which read, “Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public,” according to an email exchange attached to Wednesday’s filing.
Hundreds of pages of newly-disclosed correspondence between federal prosecutors and Epstein’s dream team of defense lawyers, including Jay Lefkowitz, Kenneth Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black, and Lefcourt, provide an inside look at Epstein’s efforts to forestall the federal prosecution and at the effort to conceal the resulting deal, despite repeated acknowledgements by government lawyers that they were legally required to inform the victims.
“Neither federal agents nor anyone from your Office should contact the [alleged victims] to inform them of the resolution of the case,” wrote Lefkowitz in a letter to then-U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta a month after the deal was signed. “Not only would that violate the confidentiality of the agreement, but Mr. Epstein also will have no control over what is communicated to the identified individuals at this most critical stage. We believe it is essential that we participate in crafting mutually acceptable communication to the [alleged victims].”
While the relationship between Epstein’s legal team and the U.S. attorneys would eventually devolve into what Acosta later described as “a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors,” the early negotiations took on a cooperative tone, victims’ attorneys allege, that had defense lawyers and prosecutors “working together to concoct a criminal charge for Epstein to plea to other than his sexual abuse of minors.”
The correspondence revealed Wednesday also shed light on the Epstein camp’s efforts to cast him as an altruist – touting his extensive charitable giving and highlighting his supposed connections to prominent organizations. (Phony Philantropy to cover their tracks…Typical Billionaire strategy!)
“In a feature article about Mr. Epstein in New York Magazine,” Lefcourt wrote in a letter to prosecutors, “former President Clinton aptly described Mr. Epstein as ‘a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first century science.’ President Clinton reached this conclusion during a month-long trip to Africa with Mr. Epstein, which Mr. Epstein hosted. The purpose of that trip was to increase AIDS awareness; to work towards a solution to the AIDS crisis; and to provide funding to reduce the costs of delivering medications to those inflicted (sic) with the disease.”
Epstein entered his guilty pleas in June of 2008 to one count of solicitation of a prostitute and one count of solicitation of a prostitute who is a minor. He served 13 months in a private wing of the Palm Beach County stockade with liberal work-release privileges that allowed him to spend up to sixteen hours a day at his office. He is also required to register as a sex offender in any state where he has a home.
If he’d been charged and convicted on the federal counts, Epstein might have spent the rest of his life in prison. Instead, he now splits his time between his permanent residence – a private island estate off the coast of St. Thomas – and homes in Paris, New Mexico and New York City, where he owns what is purported to be one of the largest single-family residences in Manhattan.
Two of Epstein’s alleged victims, then 14-year-old girls now identified in court documents as Jane Does 1 and 2, filed suit in 2008 accusing the government of violating the federal law which guarantees crime victims the right to confer with prosecutors and to be treated fairly by the justice system. Wednesday’s filing in the case seeks a ruling from the judge that their rights – and those of all the alleged Epstein victims identified in the federal investigation – were indeed violated by the government. Their ultimate goal is the invalidation of Epstein’s “sweetheart plea deal.”
“Despite the fact that this case has been in litigation for more than seven years spanning several hundred pleadings,” write the victims’ attorneys, “the Government does not write even a single sentence explaining why it entered into [a deal] with a sex offender who had committed hundreds of federal sex offenses against young girls. Perhaps there is some reason for this extraordinary leniency. But if so, the Government has yet to offer it.”
A spokesperson for Wilfredo Ferrer, the current U.S. Attorney in Miami who is defending the government’s handling of Epstein’s case, declined to comment on the allegations raised by the victims. Former U.S. Attorney Acosta did not respond to request for comment, nor did Lefkowitz, Epstein’s attorney who handled the bulk of the negotiations with the government at the time.
In a court filing last January, Epstein’s attorneys argued that despite what the victims’ attorneys claim, the deal he made with the government was negotiated “at arm’s length” with prosecutors. “There is no reality to the notion that Epstein somehow coerced the United States government into a non-prosecution agreement by improper means,” the filing says.
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Though he was ordered t to report every 90 days “in any state where he has a home”…
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By Elizabeth Rosner, / Tina Moore,/ Larry Celona and Bruce Golding
Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein never once checked in with city cops in the eight-plus years since a Manhattan judge ordered him to do so every 90 days — and the NYPD says it’s fine with that.
After being labeled a worst-of-the-worst, Level 3 sex offender in 2011, Epstein should have reported in person to verify his address 34 times before he was arrested Saturday on federal child sex-trafficking charges.
Violating requirements of the state’s 1996 Sex Offender Registration Act — including checking in with law enforcement — is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a first offense.
Subsequent violations carry a sentence of up to seven years each.
But the NYPD hasn’t required the billionaire financier — who owns a $77 million Upper East Side townhouse — to check in since he registered as a sex offender in New York over the controversial 2008 plea bargain he struck in Florida amid allegations he sexually abused scores of underage girls in his Palm Beach mansion.
Several current and former high-ranking NYPD officials were shocked to learn from The Post that the department had given Epstein a pass on his periodic check-ins, with one saying, “It makes no sense.”
“The NYPD can’t modify a court order,” a source said. “If the judge says he has to report here, he has to report here.”
Another source said Epstein was “supposed to go to SOMU,” an acronym for the NYPD’s Sex Offender Monitoring Unit, located in the Manhattan criminal courthouse at 100 Centre St.
“If he didn’t, then he’s in violation and they could have arrested him,” the source said.
The NYPD maintains that Epstein, 66, wasn’t required to check in with New York cops because he claims his primary residence is a private island, Little St. James Island, in the US Virgin Islands.
But state Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz considered and rejected that very argument by defense lawyer Sandra Musumeci during the Jan. 18, 2011, hearing.
Musumeci insisted that Epstein wasn’t a “resident of New York” and that his seven-story townhouse at 9 E. 71st St. was a “vacation home” at which he had no plans to ever stay “longer than a period 10 days.”
Pickholz insisted that Epstein would have to abide by the mandatory reporting requirements for Level 3 offenders.
“I am sorry he may have to come here every 90 days,” she said, according to an official transcript. “He can give up his New York home if he does not want to come every 90 days.”
That was the same hearing where, in a highly controversial move, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office tried to argue on Epstein’s behalf that he should be deemed a low-risk Level 1 offender, which would have exempted him from the reporting requirements.
The DA’s office has said that the prosecutor in that case — Jennifer Gaffney, who quit last year — “made a mistake” and that DA Cyrus Vance Jr. was unaware of it at the time.
In March, an NYPD spokeswoman told the Washington Post that Epstein never checked in following Pickholz’s ruling. Asked repeatedly about that admission this week, the NYPD declined comment.
Asked about her ruling, state court spokesman Lucian Chalfen said Pickholz “stands by what was said in court, on the record, at the hearing and has had no further role in any type of enforcement. That’s not the court’s role.”
In addition to verifying a sex offender’s address, the 90-day check-ins allow cops to take a new photograph if the offender’s appearance has changed, so it can be updated online.
The NYPD cop assigned to monitor Epstein has repeatedly complained to Vance’s Sex Crimes Unit that Epstein wasn’t in compliance, according to a source familiar with the matter.
But prosecutors told the cop to merely send Epstein a letter reminding him of his reporting requirement.
A Vance spokesman denied that allegation, saying “the NYPD — which is the agency responsible for monitoring SORA compliance — has repeatedly told us that Mr. Epstein was in full compliance with the law.”
“Our office vigorously prosecutes all failure-to-verify cases. Our prosecutors did not and would not discourage the NYPD from making an arrest,” Vance spokesman Danny Frost said.
NYPD spokesman Phillip Walzak said the SOMU “monitored Epstein while his reporting address was in New York City.”
“The NYPD is proud of its hard work alongside our federal partners to make the case against Epstein that led to his arrest for his vile crimes, and that will ultimately bring justice for his victims.”
An NYPD spokesman added that this took place years ago, before much of the current leadership at the NYPD was in place.
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FINANCIER AND ALLEGED sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein confided to prominent scientists and businessmen a vision of seeding the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his sprawling New Mexico ranch. The disgraced hedge fund manager, who was charged in July with sex trafficking dozens of underage girls as young as 14, had discussed the idea since the early 2000s at assorted dinners and gatherings — outlining a plan wherein women would be inseminated with his sperm and birth his children, four unnamed sources told The New York Times.
While there is no evidence of such activities, Epstein reportedly told numerous individuals about the plan, which likely stems from his interest in transhumanism: a science (similar to the discredited eugenics) that involves “improving” humans through methods like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Epstein’s lawyers did not respond to the Times‘ requests for comment.
Author and virtual reality creator Jaron Lanier recalled to the Times that a scientist (who claimed to work at NASA) told him Epstein aimed to impregnate 20 women at a time at his New Mexico property. The scientist told Lanier that Epstein based the concept on the Repository for Germinal Choice, the now-defunct California sperm bank commonly believed to include sperm from only Nobel laureates. (The only publicly known Nobel contributor was physicist William Shockley.)
Scientists cited in the report say Epstein discussed the idea freely in certain settings — including a 2001 dinner and a 2006 conference in the Virgin Islands. Alan M. Dershowitz, a professor emeritus of law at Harvard, recalled a lunch Epstein hosted in Cambridge, Massachusetts at which the financier discussed the idea of how to genetically improve humans.
The Times notes several prominent scientists with whom Epstein associated, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Nobel-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann and evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould. Many elite scientists, reeled in by the potential financing of their respective projects, joined the billionaire Epstein for lavish dinners at his Manhattan mansion or conferences he sponsored at his private island in the Virgin Islands.
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MORE THAN 70 men and women alleged to have knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor females were identified as potential witnesses in a court doc filed by one of the pedophile’s underage victims.
Virginia Roberts claimed that Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, hairstylist to the stars Frederic Fekkai and former senate majority leader George Mitchell were among those who “had knowledge of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual trafficking conduct and interaction with underage minors.”
The names were included in a list of potential witnesses that Roberts filed back in 2016 at the start of her case against Maxwell, who she sued for defamation after the one-time paramour of Epstein called her a liar.
Every single person listed previously denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s penchant for young girls and it is not clear whether the named individuals actually provided evidence in the case.
The court documents also do not indicate when Roberts believes each individual named became aware of Epstein’s crimes and does not accuse the individuals listed of actively participating in any crime or cover-up.
Roberts has long alleged that she was sexually abused by both Maxwell and Epstein when she as a minor, and Maxwell ultimately settled that 2015 lawsuit out of court.
A judge in August unsealed approximately 2,000 pages of documents in the case, and is preparing to release another small trove of information in the coming weeks.
There has been much talk about the names that could be contained in these soon-to-be unsealed documents, but a look through the lengthy court proceedings reveals that Roberts had already identified a number of the individuals.
Here are a list of some of the men and women named in the documents obtained by The Sun.
HAS KNOWLEDGE OF GHSILAINE MAXWELL AND JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S SEXUAL TRAFFICKING CONDUCT AND INTERACTION WITH UNDERAGE MINORS
GHISLAINE MAXWELL
Roberts has alleged that Maxwell also sexually abused her by forcing her to engage in threeseomes with herself and Epstein.
JEAN-LUC BRUNEL
The French model scout and former modeling agency manager who multiple women, including Roberts, have alleged they were trafficked to by Epstein.
RON BURKLE
Billionaire co-founder of The Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private equity and venture capital firm that specializes in purchasing and then restructuring underperforming companies. He is close friends with Sarah, Duchess of York, and Bill and Hillary Clinton
ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Polarizing lawyer and Harvard professor whose past clients include President Trump, OJ Simpson and Epstein, whose sweetheart deal with state and federal prosecutors he helped broker back in 2008. Roberts has alleged that she was trafficked to Dershowitz, which he has denied. Roberts has since filed a lawsuit against him for defamation similar to the one she filed against Maxwell in 2015.
EVA AND GLEN DUBIN
The former girlfriend of Epstein and her doctor husband who Roberts has alleged she was trafficked to by Epstein and Maxwell.
PRINCE ANDREW ALBERT CHRISTIAN EDWARD, DUKE OF YORK
The eighth in line to the British throne, who Roberts has said she was trafficked to in London at the age of 17. Prince Andrew has denied this, despite Roberts having a photo of herself with Maxwell and the royal.
FREDERIC FEKKAI
The famed hairstylist was the go-to guy when it came to trimming the tresses of the young women in Epstein’s orbit, according to multiple reports and court filings. Fekkai has never been accused of engaging in any illegal activity.
TONY FIGUEROA
Robert’s ex-boyfriend who says that he was asked to recruit girls for Maxwell and Epstein when he was just 17.
CLARE HAZEL
Mystery associate of Epstein whose alleged link to the pedophile remains unclear but who flew with him on the “Lolita Express” – Epstein’s infamous sex plane.
STEPHEN KAUFMAN
Roberts claimed she was trafficked to Kaufman in a 2016 deposition. He has denied this accusation.
SARAH KELLEN
Epstein’s assistant who managed to avoid charges in Florida, reportedly as part of his sweetheart deal. Many of Epstein’s underage victims have alleged that Kellen scheduled their appointments and facilitated his abuse if underage girls.
NADIA MARCINKOVA
A foreign-born model who many have identified as an accomplice in procuring underage girls for Epstein. She may be just as much a victim of the serial pedophile, however, who claimed to have purchased Nadia from her family at the age of 12.
GEORGE MITCHELL
The former senator from Maine and senate majority leader from 1989 to 1995. Roberts claims she was trafficked to the senator, an allegation that he denies.
DAVID ROGERS
Epstein’s pilot, whose flight logs offered proof that Epstein and Maxwell frequently travelled with Roberts when she was an underage.
ADRIANA MUCINSKA
Another Epstein assistant who allegedly helped to facilitate his encounters with underage girls.
EMMY TAYLOR
Maxwell’s assistant at the time that Virginia was allegedly being trafficked by the British-born socialite.
TOM PRITZKER
Billionaire hotel heir and cousin of Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker.
BILL RICHARDSON
The former governor of New Mexico, where Epstein owned the massive Zorro Ranch. Roberts alleged in a 2016 deposition that she was trafficked to the politician. He had been seen as a possible frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 primary but dropped out around the same time that Epstein’s legal troubles in Palm Beach came to light.
HALEY ROBSON
The high school student who was a victim of Epstein, and then allegedly became one of his biggest recruiters in Palm Beach. She too avoided charges in the Palm Bach case.
LARRY VISKOSKY
Epstein’s pilot whose flight logs and deposition also provided definitive proof that Epstein knew and travelled with a number of his underage victims.
LESLIE WEXNER
The billionaire owner of Victoria’s Secret, The Limited and Bath & Body Works was Epstein’s most prominent client at his money-managing firm.
IGOR ZINOVIEW
The former Russian mixed martial arts fighter who became Epstein’s bodyguard.
MAY HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF GHISLAINE MAXWELL AND JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S SEXUAL TRAFFICKING CONDUCT AND INTERACTION WITH UNDERAGE MINORS
DOUG BAND
Bill Clinton’s former aide who travelled the world with Epstein and his boss.
RYAN DIONNE
A former chef of Epstein, who travelled with the pedophile.
ERIC GANY
The man tasked with managing Epstein’s finances.
ADAM PERRY LANG
A former chef of Epstein, who travelled with the pedophile.
PETER LISTERMAN
An associate of Epstein who was once described as “the world’s famous seller of young models to oligarchs“ by Kristina Goncharova, a one-time Miss Teen Ukraine who alleges she was one of Listerman’s victims.
TODD MEISTER
Best known for his brief marriage to socialite Nicky Hilton, Meister’s hedge fund was given a huge boost with an investment from Wexner.
The filing also include a number of women who The Sun is not naming out of an abundance of caution.
Roberts named these individuals in a filing of potential witnesses she would like to depose in the case.
How many, if any, actually sat down for depositions before Maxwell settled out of court is not clear.
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JEFFREY EPSTEIN AUTOPSY Expert Claims DNA Evidence Never Delivered… M.E. STANDS BY ORIGINAL FINDINGS
10:12 AM PT — The Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, stands staunchly by the original findings. She tells TMZ, “Our investigation concluded that the cause of Mr. Epstein’s death was hanging and the manner of death was suicide. We stand by that determination.”
10/30/19Fox News
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Agent Kelly Maguire testified that CDs and hard drives disappeared as authorities waited on a warrant to seize them
An FBI special agent testified to a New York court in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial on Monday that evidence “went missing” from Jeffrey Epstein’s New York townhouse while authorities were waiting on a warrant.
Special Agent Kelly Maguire recalled how CDs and other items were recovered by the FBI from a locked safe during an initial search of the Manhattan home on July 6 and July 7, 2019, after Epstein’s arrest on sex assault charges.
The FBI agent said officers broke open the safe with a saw, finding the CDs, jewellery, computer hard drives, “loose diamonds”, passports and “large amounts of US currency.”
They took photographs of the items, but left them at the residence as they did not have the warrant to remove them. When they returned four days later, on July 11, they were no longer there.
Agent Maguire, a member of an FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, said she then called Richard Kahn, Epstein’s lawyer who now serves as the executor of the later financier’s estate, to ask what happened to the items.
“Twenty to thirty minutes after the conversation, Richard Kahn came to the residence and brought them items back in two suitcases,” Agent Maguire said.
She could not confirm the content on the returned CDs was the same as the ones that were taken, but confirmed all the items were accounted for.
(what about the Hard Drives? And we are supposed to believe that these things were not replaced or tampered with? Why did it take so long to go back to retrieve them with a warrant? Why was the house not under surveillance in the meantime? Either by personnel or via digital surveillance???? Who was allowed to enter and leave a scene that contained evidence to a crime?)
Boxes of CDs and hard drives were discovered in several rooms in Epstein’s eight-storey Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, including in a so-called massage room. Some, Agent McGuire testified, had “evidence tape” sealing them. She told the court the tape had not been put there by police.
On the fifth floor, FBI agents also found a shelf full of large black binders. The binders held CDs, carefully categorised in plastic slipcovers and thumbnails with photos on them.
Another FBI agent who took to the stand on the sixth day of Ms Maxwell sex-trafficking trial confirmed one CD contained a photograph of the British socialite and Epstein.
Federal prosecutors previously alluded to the contents of the safe in July, 2019, when they sought to have a judge deny Epstein’s bail application later that month.
According to reports at the time, a trove of lewd photographs of children was found in the safe at the property.
Court papers said that alongside photos were compact discs with handwritten labels including: “‘Young [Name] + [Name],’ ‘Misc nudes 1,’ and ‘Girl pics nude.”
There was also a passport from a foreign country with a picture of Epstein under another name.
The mansion had 40 rooms and Ms Maguire testified on Monday that it took about 12 hours for her team to fully search.
YOU KNOW IF IT WAS ANYBODY ELSE ALL EPSTEIN’s PROPERTY WOULD HAVE BEEN SEIZED IMMEDIATEY.
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Well, we can all clearly see that governments, courts and police departments cannot be trusted to act honorably on their own. They must be diligently monitored and governed. They should not be allowed to govern themselves. It is imparative the the public be kept informed and that the voices of the people should be heard.
We MUST defend ourselves against tyranny and government over reach. Power CORRUPTS!!! AND Ultimate Power CORRUPTS ULTIMATELY. We need to be very careful about what powers we give/surrender to authority.