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Call it a true “Rocky Mountain High”. The Boulder County Sherriff’s office in Colorado has found several marijuana grow sites on U.S. Forest Service land.
The grow sites cover about 5 acres and was found by a hiker. These sites contain around 7,500 plants worth about $1 million. The original grow site had about 3,000 marijuana plants that included a well-organized and sophisticated irrigation system. The plants are between three and six feet tall. The sites are in close proximity and have the same irrigation system which leads the police to believe that the area is maintained by the same people.
When police arrived at the scene they saw a suspect fleeing the scene. He is described as Hispanic, 5 feet 6 inches tall and 150 pounds. Authorities do not know if the man is armed, but say he could be dangerous.
When the police searched the area they found camping equipment at the scene. The police think that there are more people involved in the growing operation. However, they didn’t find any evidence that would have indicated the people involved were armed.
Authorities say this discovery of about 7,500 plants is the largest on public lands since August 2009, when more than 14,000 plants were found in the Pike National Forest. A spokesperson for the DEA says Colorado is seeing less marijuana confiscated from public lands than other states because Colorado has legalized growing medical marijuana. However, in nearby Utah has confiscated more than 100,000 plants so far this year.
The Colorado National Guard will be providing two helicopters to airlift the marijuana to a loading area, where it will be taken by truck to a site to be destroyed.
A recent conviction Kansas shows that Jessica’s law is working. A Bonner resident was sentenced to life for rape and aggravated indecent liberties with a child who was a relative.
Gregory Lopez age 52 was sentenced in Wyandotte County District Court with a minimum of 25 years under Jessica’s Law for one count of rape and an additional 272 months to run consecutively to the first sentence for one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The two females he raped were Lopez’s relatives ages 17 and 6 years old.
These incidents occurred over a 10 year span between 2000 and 2010. Finally, one of the victims told a family member of the abuse and that’s when Lopez was caught and jailed.
It’s sad that it took these young girls that long to tell a family member, but that is what happens with young girls who are afraid and ashamed of what is happening. At least another dirt bag child rapist is in jail for the rest of his life. He won’t be hurting these girls or any other girls for the rest of his life.
In a bizarre twist, the victim of a robbery in Cleveland, Ohio grabbed the gun from the robber and shot him dead. The criminal, Terrance Manning age 20 died from shortly after the robbery.
He served two years on robbery and weapons charges and was recently, August 21st, released from prison. Obviously, he hadn’t learned his lesson because he and three of his criminal friends tried to rob again.
Witnesses to the robbery said that the victim was walking toward his apartment when he was approached by four men wearing hooded sweatshirts. Police said one of the men pulled a gun and said, “You [know] what this is, get on the ground.” The robbery victim complied. The robbers took his apartment keys and other items from the victim, and then forced him to take them to his apartment.
As one of the suspects attempted to unlock the apartment door, he switched the gun from one hand to the other. This is when the victim grabbed the gun, and a struggle ensued between the victim and two of the suspects. Two of the suspects ran and the other two and the robbery victim struggled over the gun. The gun fired several times, striking one of the suspects.
Homicide detectives are investigating the incident. No charges had been filed and unfortunately the other suspects had not been caught. Police did not have a detailed description of the remaining suspects.
Recently, after a year-long investigation, Longmont, Colorado police arrested Rebecca Ingles for passing more than 125 fake $20 bills over the past year. She also was charged with meth possession.
However, she may be just the beginning of people charged in a counterfeit money ring. The police think that there may be more people involved. Police believe that over 200 counterfeit bills have been entered into the economy in Longmont, Colorado.
The police know for sure that Ingles passed the money at places such as McDonald’s, area gas stations and 7-11’s. She would by low-priced items with the twenty dollar bill and get back real money which she would funnel back into her drug habit and a meth ring. The meth organization is working from Denver up to Fort Collins.
Counterfeit money is getting harder to tell because these criminal are getting better at counterfeiting the twenty dollar bills. However, here are few tips to know if your twenty dollar bill is fake: the fine scroll lines on the border of a genuine bill are sharp. On the fake, the lines are blurred. The serial numbers on the twenty dollar are evenly spaced. Not so with the fake. They may even be discolored. Finally, look for the watermark, it should look exactly like the picture.
Ingles is in the Boulder County Jail and faces 15 or more years behind bars. Investigators continue to look for the other people involved.
Now drug gangs are targeting people on Facebook. According to CNN news, three teens in the county of Columbia who were put on a hit list have been killed in the past 10 days. Police don’t know who posted these threats or why sixty plus other names are on the list.
However, Columbian police know that a criminal gang known as Los Rastrojos and a Marxist guerilla group call Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia also known as FARC operate in the area. The hit list post was posted on August 17 and gave these three teens three days to leave the town of Puerto Asis or be executed. At first the police thought it was a joke, but when these teens were murdered, the police knew that the threat was no joke.
According to Colombian media the number of those threatened has grown and panic has overtaken Puerto Asis. Parents have sent their children out of town because their names are on the Facebook notice.
Now Federal officials say they are taking the threats seriously and have sent investigators from Bogota, the nation’s capital, to Puerto Asis. Also Internet experts are among the investigators assigned to the case. There is a reward, 5 million pesos or $2,750, for information on the killings.
Sextortion is when someone sends a text or nude cell phone photos of themselves to a friend or upload it to a chat room. The result is that this gives the opportunity for someone to click save and use that photo against the person, blackmailing them into giving them what they want while threatening to release the picture.
As a result, Federal prosecutors and child safety advocates are warning parents that there is an upswing in cases of online sexual extortion. Unaware teens who text nude cell phone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the Internet are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and families unless they pose for more explicit porn. This creates a vicious cycle of exploitation.
Because this is a new type of crime, no one can currently track the numbers of cases involving online sexual extortion in state and federal courts. However, prosecutors and others point toward several recent high-profile examples victimizing teens in a dozen states.
In Alabama, Jonathan Vance, 24, of Auburn was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April after he admitted sending threatening e-mails on Facebook and MySpace extorting nude photos from more than 50 young women in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
In Wisconsin, Anthony Stancl, 18, received 15 years in prison in February after prosecutors said he posed as a girl on Facebook to trick male high school classmates into sending him nude cell phone photos, which he then used to extort them for sex.
A 31-year-old California man was arrested in June on extortion charges after authorities said he hacked into more than 200 computers and threatened to expose nude photos he found unless their owners posed for more sexually explicit videos. Forty-four of the victims were juveniles, authorities said. Federal prosecutors said he was even able to remotely activate some victims’ webcams without their knowledge and record them undressing or having sex.
What we need to teach our kids is that privacy is nonexistent on the Internet. If they upload any type of indiscretions online even only once, they are virtually impossible to take back. A nude photo sent to a boyfriend’s cell phone can easily be circulated through cell phone contacts and wind up on websites that post sexting photos. Once there, it’s available for anyone who wants to trace it back to the person who made it.
Teens are more vulnerable to blackmail because they’re easy to intimidate and embarrassed. They won’t to seek help. Unfortunately, these low-life extortionists are often willing to make good on their threats.
Why do criminals do stupid things? Maybe the explanation is simply they are high on drugs. Recently, a man in North Carolina found that laughing in court is really no laughing matter.
A Fayetteville, N.C. man was waiting for his case to be heard when the judge heard him laughing in the courtroom. The judge asked him why he was laughing, but 47-year-old Johnny Montgomery refused to answer the judge. As a result, the judge ordered Montgomery to jail on a misdemeanor charge.
When the deputies were preparing to take him to jail, they found more than 3 grams of crack cocaine on him. Needless to say he was charged with felony drug possession and thrown in jail.
What was he thinking? Why would anyone show up in court with crack cocaine and expect to walk out of the courthouse unscathed. Just another stupid criminal doing what they do best – being stupid.
Recently, an overnight mail handler has pleaded guilty to two felony counts of theft by mail in Colorado Federal Court. David Schmauder, age 48, stole more than 11,000 packages over two years. He admitted to stealing about 50 packages two or three nights a week since January 2008.
This low-life criminal targeted boxes from online retailers including Amazon.com, stealing CDs, DVDs and Victoria’s Secret lingerie. He would give the stolen lingerie to his wife. He would resell the CDs and DVDs to Angelo’s Movies, Music and Gifts, which bills itself as the largest independent music store in the Denver, Colorado area.
The owner of the music store claims that he had no idea that these items were stolen. He claimed that Schmauder had different types of stuff to sell and thought that he was running a legitimate business. Receipts showed that Schmauder was paid $85,174 for 11,829 items to the store. You would think, that the owner of the music store be suspicious of the volume of the CDs and DVDs and ask for the very least a business license from Schmauder? In fact, Schmauder sold more items to the store than any other re-seller and the owner of the music store thinks that some of the products he bought from this criminal may have been some of his own intercepted packages.
The postal service estimated losses at $283,913 but the actual amount is unknown. Schmauder has to pay a fine of $4,000 to $40,000 and could be sentenced to one and a half to two years in prison at a sentencing hearing in November.
According to Fox40 news, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an order to get tougher on sex offenders running away from supervision. A public alert system is currently being designed that will alert the public as well as police when a sex offender cuts off their satellite tracking devices to commit new crimes.
This system will use social media, web sites, RSS feeds to alert the public. The system will be designed to cover a number of platforms such as Smart Phones, Roadside Billboards and Social Networking sights.
According to law enforcement reports, parolees have cut off their ankle bracelets as many as 60 times a month with most of them being sex offenders. More than 7,000 prison parolees now wear satellite tracking bracelets as mandated by Jessica’s Law. However, this represents just a fraction of the more than 80,000 registered sex offenders in California.
This new public alert system is on the fast track to be designed and implemented within a couple of weeks. This may seem like information overload but when it comes to protecting our kids and the public, it can’t come fast enough.
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