Stories tagged "crime and law enforcement"

Until Bernard Madoff made off with billions in investor savings, the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history was the Bayou Group scam. Investor Samuel Israel III swindled investors out of 400 million dollars and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April. An interesting precedent was set when that case went to court. Investors who had cashed out of Bayou early were forced to return their money. Will the same thing happen again? The Takeaway talks to Phil Bentley, a bankruptcy litigator with Kramer Levin in New York City. He represented seventy investors who pulled out of the Bayou group early.

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Last week investor Bernie Madoff became a household name when he was arrested for securities fraud. His victims, including Mort Zuckerman, Steven Spielberg and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), are among the richest and most powerful people in the world. But the Madoff fallout did not only hit society's top tier, but is also crippling nonprofits and everyday investors. For a look at how far the Madoff dominoes have fallen, The Takeaway checks in with Robert Chew. Last Thursday Chew and his wife learned that they had lost everything in a Madoff investment.

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Trading jobs for money is only part of the story.

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Unfortunately for Illinois, political corruption is not unusual.

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The U.S. Attorney prosecuting the corruption case has a higher profile than the Governor.

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"Somebody from a rival cartel pulled up in a car, snatched this girl, threw her in the back of the car, drove away, called the guy and said, 'we've got your daughter and we're going to kill her.'"
--Mark Moran on the increased drug cartel activity in Phoenix, Arizon

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Maine and Vermont are the only two states in the country that allow convicted felons to vote while in prison. But in Maine, prisons are one of the only places that the campaigns can't actually penetrate. Prisoners don’t have access to the candidates' campaigns and are barred from talking politics with prison staff. As the presidential campaign wraps up, Jeffrey Merrill, the warden of Maine State Prison joins us to talk about how Maine's prisoners participate in the electoral process.

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Federal and local police have arrested dozens of members of "The Mongols." a motorcycle gang, on racketeering charges. The gang operates in southern California and five other states. In an odd twist, what may be the biggest blow to the gang's activities is an attempt by the feds to seize control of the Mongols' trademarked logo, a ponytailed, Genghis Khan-like figure riding a chopper.

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With the case of Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is going to the jury, and a verdict expected any day now, Capitol News Connection's Todd Zwillich looks into the history of other senators who've been in legal trouble while in office.

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If the NSA is listening to your phone calls and reading your emails, would you want to know about it?

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Closing arguments come this morning in the four-week-long corruption trial of Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens. Stevens is charged with the felony offense of lying on his financial disclosure forms about gifts worth more than $250,000. The jury is expected to start deliberation Wednesday, and there are less than two weeks until Election Day, when voters will have their chance to choose Stevens' fate.

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Ten years ago this week, Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was brutally murdered. Shepard’s death struck a chord with people across the nation and re-energized the gay-rights movement. But a decade later, many say the nation hasn’t come nearly far enough.

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As a standoff between Somali pirates and U.S warships continues in the Indian Ocean, a British think tank released a report today showing the growth of piracy off the Somali coast. According to Chatham House, piracy in the region has doubled in 2008 over the previous year. It threatens to disrupt international trade and could potentially become a weapon of international terrorism.

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Chinese state media report that police arrested 22 people accused of involvement in a network that produced, sold and added the industrial chemical melamine to milk. BBC Correspondent Vaudine England joins The Takeaway from Hong Kong, where British chocolate manufacturers have recalled some China-made products.

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It sounds like a fantastic tale — pirates, ransoms and hijacked tanks — but today, a Ukrainian ship with 33 tanks and other military hardware on board was hijacked by Somali pirates. A U.S. destroyer and at least two other foreign warships have surrounded the hijacked vessel, currently moored off the coast of central Somalia. The pirates have demanded a ransom for the ship's release. They've told the BBC they are not afraid and have enough food to withstand a siege.

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Jury selection begins today in the trial of five men accused of plotting a terrorist attack on the army base in Fort Dix, New Jersey. The Muslim men, all in their 20s, were taken into FBI custody in May 2007 after a tip from a store clerk asked to dub a videotape containing scenes of men with weapons and cries for jihad.

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India has become the first country to convict a person of a crime based on a brain scan. This past summer, a woman was given a life sentence for murder after prosecutors strapped her to memory-scanning electrodes and ran a test called Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature, or BEOS. Could this be coming to America anytime soon?

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A serial killer has killed 10 young black women and one man in Los Angeles since 1985. The killer went dormant for years, occasionally reemerging. Eight unsolved homicides from the 1980s show links to DNA tests and ballistics from a 2002 case, then one in 2003 and another in 2007. Police knew a deadly stalker was in their midst a year ago, and ordered a special task force. But no one told the public or families of the victims until the story broke in the L.A. Weekly. The Takeaway talks to journalist Christine Pelisek about a killer in L.A. who has been around for 22 years, lays dormant and then strikes, and is now known as the “Grim Sleeper."

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On September 10th Charles Dean Hood will die by lethal injection — or not. He’s already received five stays of execution, which is not unusual for death row. What is unusual is why: there are credible allegations that the judge who presided over Hood’s trial was, during the trial, having an affair with the prosecutor who handled the case against Hood. For the latest developments we spoke with Michael Hall, Senior Editor of Texas Monthly. He’s been corresponding with Hood since 2002.

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