A South Los Angeles woman whose disappearance in June 2025 was publicized as a kidnapping by federal agents has pleaded guilty to staging the whole thing.

Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderón, 43, a Mexican citizen who prosecutors say has been in the U.S. illegally since overstaying in 2023, pleaded guilty on Oct. 26, 2026, to conspiracy to impede and obstruct the lawful functions of Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson set sentencing for Feb. 8, 2027. She faces up to five years in federal prison.

Phone calls with caller ID blocked

On June 25, 2025, she told someone that “immigration” was taking her while she was in or near a fast-food restaurant, and that officials had “turned the lights on” and “threatened to break her window,” according to her plea agreement. A superseding indictment filed in January 2026 identifies the restaurant as a Jack in the Box on Alameda Street in Los Angeles. It says she told the person to “wait an hour” before reporting it, then walked away and voluntarily got into a gray sedan that drove her to Bakersfield.

Over the next days, with her caller ID blocked, she called a member of a tenants’ rights group and claimed she had been taken to San Ysidro and pressured to sign voluntary removal papers. She called another person and said she was in a warehouse with other detainees, and later said she was being held with someone from “B-18,” an immigration facility in Los Angeles, prosecutors said.

False reports spread to the media and police that masked men in plain clothes in an unmarked vehicle had kidnapped her. On June 30, 2025, community organizers held a news conference in Los Angeles demanding her release. All the while, she knew about the coverage and stayed hidden in Bakersfield, according to the office.

A staged release

On July 3, 2025, she traveled to Tulare County to stage her release. She told a stranger she had just been dropped off by “Border Patrol” and asked the person to be a witness in a lawsuit she planned to file against the agency, prosecutors said. She altered her appearance to look mistreated, and a co-conspirator photographed her. For three days she turned off her phones and ignored calls from law enforcement.

The indictment alleged the plan was meant to get federal agencies to investigate and then compensate her for supposed civil rights violations. HSI agents interviewed her in Bakersfield on July 5, 2025, according to the indictment. Court minutes from October 2025 show she was brought to court in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A former top official at the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts has been sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for ordering jail maintenance workers to repair his home and then trying to derail a state ethics investigation into it.

U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick sentenced Thomas Brady, 55, of Norwood, on Oct. 26, 2026, to 20 months in prison, two years of supervised release and a $5,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. He had pleaded guilty to one count of witness tampering and one count of using interstate facilities to commit bribery and extortion.

The court docket (No. 1:25-cr-10184) shows Brady waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a charging information on June 5, 2026. His sentencing was continued to Oct. 13, 2026, and then rescheduled for Oct. 26, 2026.

A heating system and a circulator pump

Brady was assistant deputy superintendent for jail operations from 2021 until May 2023, when he was promoted to assistant superintendent, prosecutors said. In October and November 2022, he used that position to order a maintenance officer who worked under him to fix his home heating system during and after work hours.

The officer feared Brady could take away his preferred shift, his position or his job if he said no, according to the office. On about Oct. 6, 2022, he drove to Brady’s home during work hours to troubleshoot the heat. When the heat gave him more trouble, Brady contacted the officer to replace the circulator pump, and on Nov. 1, 2022, and Nov. 2, 2022, the officer returned with a second maintenance officer and installed a new one.

A forged letter, and a fingerprint under the stamp

On about June 16, 2023, a third maintenance officer reported Brady to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission, which opened an investigation. After learning about it, Brady mailed a handwritten letter to the commission on about Oct. 5, 2023, falsely signed in the name of the officer who had reported him, prosecutors said. The letter disclosed details of a confidential internal investigation into one of the maintenance officers and listed Brady himself as a witness.

Investigators found a fingerprint under the postage stamp that belonged to Brady, and male DNA from the envelope flap matched him, according to the office.

At sentencing, the judge also found as relevant conduct that Brady ran a smear campaign against the victims and witnesses, prosecutors said. That included an anonymous letter to a school falsely accusing the officer who reported him of abusing a young relative. The school reported it to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which opened an emergency investigation based on the false claim.

A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to running a five-year scheme that got unqualified people licensed as nail technicians in West Virginia and other states using forged school records, and that brought her $9,110,920.84.

Hang Kim Thi Ngo, 42, of Windermere, Florida, pleaded guilty on Oct. 26, 2026, to identity theft and money laundering before U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers in Huntington, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia said. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 22, 2027, and faces up to 35 years in prison. She must forfeit the full $9.1 million. The case is No. 3:26-cr-117.

Why West Virginia

The scheme leaned on West Virginia because its rules are tough, prosecutors said. The state requires a high school diploma or GED, a diploma from an accredited beauty school and a medical evaluation certificate from a licensed physician. That makes a West Virginia license more valuable, because it eases the way to licenses in other states through reciprocity.

On the West Virginia Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists’ website, the board says anyone holding a valid nail technology license from another state can transfer it by having that state’s board send a license certification and verification of training. According to prosecutors, that is the route Ngo used.

From October 2020 through September 2025, she bought falsified diplomas and transcripts from real Florida beauty schools that she knew would sell them, according to prosecutors. With those records she got a Florida nail technician license in an applicant’s name, then used it to apply for a West Virginia license through reciprocity. Co-conspirators supplied false medical certificates when an applicant skipped the exam, and her accountant, a notary, falsely notarized documents for a fee.

Salon owners paid, workers worked it off

Ngo mostly dealt with middlemen, usually salon owners, and rarely met the applicants, prosecutors said. The middlemen typically paid her and then made the applicant work off the debt in their salons. She charged by the document, including $3,500 for a West Virginia “full package.”

As one example in her plea, a West Virginia salon owner asked her to get a license for a worker. Ngo used the worker’s Social Security number and driver’s license information, had the papers falsely notarized and mailed the application from Florida to the state board on Oct. 12, 2022. When the license arrived, she mailed it to the client in Ceredo after getting paid.

The scheme was her only income, prosecutors said. She put a $640,000 cash down payment on a $3.2 million commercial building in Winchester, Virginia, bought her Windermere home for $1.95 million and bought two Orlando homes for $695,000 and $636,000. She also admitted laundering $20,000 by writing her husband a check from CEJ Trading LLC, a consulting company she set up as a front.

A Chicago man who helped run a Medicare brace fraud scheme that federal prosecutors called one of the largest of its kind, then skipped three court dates and spent nearly two years as a fugitive in the Philippines, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. sentenced Herbert Leon Kimble, 60, on Oct. 26, 2026, for conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to appear, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina said. He was ordered to pay more than $199 million in restitution to Medicare and to forfeit more than $195 million. Prosecutors said he caused more than $365 million in false claims, of which Medicare paid more than $199 million, and used some of the money to buy a luxury condo at the Shangri-La hotel in the Philippines.

The “Iron Man Package”

The government’s amended sentencing memorandum in case No. 3:26-cr-00550 describes how the scheme worked. Call centers in the Philippines, staffed by workers Kimble called “fronters” and “chasers,” drew in Medicare patients with ads and mailers promising low- or no-cost braces. Most were elderly, and some had Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, prosecutors wrote.

Telemarketers pressed patients to accept several braces. Doctors and nurse practitioners paid per “consult” then signed prescriptions, usually without examining anyone. The goal was the “Iron Man Package,” three or more braces for one patient, the memo says. The signed orders were sold to medical equipment companies that billed Medicare.

A five-year deal he threw away

Kimble had already fled to the Philippines when he approached the government through a lawyer just after Christmas 2017, according to the memo. He met prosecutors in London in 2018 because he feared arrest if he came to the United States. He then gave them a list of his customers, secretly recorded people in covert meetings at the government’s direction, testified at a trial and handed over more than 70 terabytes of data from his companies’ servers. Prosecutors wrote that his help significantly contributed to Operation Brace Yourself, which they called one of the largest health care fraud prosecutions of its kind.

In return, he was allowed to plead guilty in 2019 to a single conspiracy count with a maximum of five years. His sentencing was put off for years while he cooperated. Then he failed to appear for court on Aug. 27, 2024, again in September 2024 and again in November 2024, and the court found he had breached his plea deal.

He was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list, and on June 11, 2026, he was arrested in the Philippines and deported, the memo says. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of failure to appear on June 16, 2026. Under a new plea agreement, he pleaded guilty on Aug. 11, 2026, and agreed to a sentence of 15 to 20 years. Prosecutors asked for the top of that range, and the judge imposed it.

A 36-year-old Quincy, Illinois, man is charged with mailing letters filled with white powder to the offices of four members of Congress. According to the FBI, the return address on every envelope was his own name and home address.

Matthew Unglesbee was arrested on Oct. 25, 2026, and charged by criminal complaint with false information and hoaxes and with mailing threatening communications, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois said. Magistrate Judge Douglas J. Quivey held his first court appearance on Oct. 26, 2026, and set a detention hearing for Oct. 28, 2026, in Springfield. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The complaint was unsealed on Oct. 26, 2026, and the office said only that it accuses Unglesbee of mailing letters with unknown substances to congressional offices. The sworn affidavit attached to it, filed in case No. 3:26-mj-03110, gives much more.

A tip from a restaurant

On Oct. 16, 2026, an anonymous tipster told the FBI they had overheard Unglesbee in a restaurant saying he had mailed suspicious substances to members of Congress, according to the affidavit by FBI Task Force Officer Charis Hobbs. The tipster gave his full name, address and date of birth.

On Oct. 21, 2026, FBI Chicago personnel, including specialists in weapons of mass destruction, recovered letters from the district offices of three members of Congress in northern Illinois. A staffer at the first office felt powder in the envelope and could hear something inside, and called 911. Hazardous materials teams went to at least two offices. Each envelope held a white granular substance and a handwritten note that read “HA HA,” the affidavit says. On Oct. 23, 2026, agents recovered a fourth envelope from a U.S. senator’s office with a note reading “HAH enjoy the gift.”

All four envelopes were postmarked in Springfield on Oct. 19, 2026, and listed “Matthew Unglesbee” as the sender, at the address the tipster had given. None of the recipients opened them, and preliminary tests at a state laboratory found no chemical or biological toxins, according to the affidavit. The members of Congress are not named.

“Kind of looks like” anthrax

FBI agents interviewed Unglesbee outside his home on Oct. 25, 2026. He admitted mailing the four letters after hearing someone in a restaurant mention news stories about other letters mailed earlier in the month, the affidavit says. He told agents the powder was salt and that he used it because it “kind of looks like” anthrax. He said he was joking but understood the recipients would not know that and could see it as a threat.

He denied any role in the earlier mailings in the news. A search of his room turned up a fifth envelope, empty and unmailed, addressed to one of the same members of Congress at a Washington office, the agent wrote.

Federal prosecutors have charged a 27-year-old Stafford, Virginia, man with smashing the Iwo Jima Memorial outside Marine Corps Base Quantico with a sledgehammer, knocking the head off one of the Marine figures.

Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano, a Mexican national, is charged by criminal complaint with willfully injuring property of the United States and willfully injuring a monument on public property that honors members of the armed forces, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said on Oct. 26, 2026. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Besides the head, the damage included several rifle barrels broken off the statue and other parts defaced, prosecutors said. FOX 5 DC, citing authorities, reported the damage to the limestone monument at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What the NCIS agent wrote

The sworn affidavit by Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Shane Brisky, filed in case No. 1:26-mj-425, says Prince William County police arrived at the statue at about 10:15 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2026, and found Maldonado Soriano “actively destroying” it. He “immediately climbed down from the statue and presented himself” for arrest without resistance, the agent wrote.

An eyewitness had called police and recorded video of the damage being done, and turned the video over to officers, according to the affidavit.

At the Garfield Police Station in Woodbridge, a county detective questioned him while the NCIS agent watched from an observation room. Maldonado Soriano admitted damaging the memorial, the affidavit says. He told the detective the sledgehammer came from his vehicle, where he kept it because he works in construction. The affidavit does not give a reason for the damage.

A state case and a federal case

The federal charges cite 18 U.S.C. § 1369, the law against destroying veterans’ memorials on federal property, and 18 U.S.C. § 1361, the federal property damage law. A magistrate judge signed off on the complaint by telephone on Oct. 23, 2026, and an arrest warrant was issued the same day, the docket shows.

Maldonado Soriano also faces state felony charges. FOX 5 DC reported that a Prince William County Circuit Court judge granted him bond on Oct. 26, 2026, and that it was not immediately clear whether he had posted it. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said he was in state custody and would face the federal charges once transferred.

A federal jury has convicted a Richmond-area man of robbing a food delivery driver at gunpoint in Newport News, Virginia, and driving off in his car. The robbers also took the food he was delivering and the shoes off his feet.

The jury found Jayveon Christopher McCloud guilty on Oct. 22, 2026, of conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce, robbery affecting interstate commerce, carjacking and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said. He faces a mandatory minimum of seven years and up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 20, 2027.

According to evidence at trial, McCloud and Takaree Alexander Fields, 22, of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, wore masks and carried handguns when they approached the driver on Oct. 22, 2025. They pointed their guns at him and ordered him to drop everything, empty his pockets and take off his shoes. They took the food, his shoes, his money and his car key fob. McCloud drove off in the victim’s car. Fields left in a car he had stolen from his mother, prosecutors said.

Two chases, two crashes

After the driver reported the robbery, Newport News police spotted his car and tried to pull it over. McCloud fled, crashed the car and was caught after a short foot chase. Fields got away that night. The next day, Henrico County police found him. He sped off, crashed in a convenience store parking lot and ran toward a wooded area before officers caught him, according to the office.

One plea, one trial

The court docket shows a grand jury indicted both men on May 11, 2026, in case No. 4:26-cr-00034. The trial date was moved at least twice before U.S. District Judge Elizabeth W. Hanes set a four-day trial to start on Oct. 20, 2026.

Fields did not go to trial. On Oct. 5, 2026, he pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Robert J. Krask to two counts, robbery affecting interstate commerce and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, under a plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 7, 2027, and also faces a mandatory minimum of seven years and up to life, prosecutors said.

The seven-year floor comes from the gun charge. Under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence carries a prison term of “not less than 7 years.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Newport News police investigated the case.

A Shiprock, New Mexico, man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of a woman who hit her head on furniture after he pushed her repeatedly during an argument in May 2024.

Ryan Flute, 46, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, agreed to a 15-year prison sentence under his plea agreement, subject to the court’s approval, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico said on Oct. 23, 2026. He also faces up to five years of supervised release after prison. The office did not name the woman.

According to court documents, Flute and the woman were drinking at a home in Shiprock on May 21, 2024, when an argument turned violent. Flute pushed her again and again, and she fell backward and struck her head on a piece of furniture. He helped her up, and they went to bed.

The next morning, Flute found her unresponsive and called for help. She was taken to a hospital, never regained consciousness and died on May 27, 2024. An autopsy found she died of blunt-force injuries, mainly to the head, and also had injuries to her neck, torso, arms and legs, prosecutors said.

What federal law says

The case was prosecuted in federal court. Under the Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1153, an Indian who commits murder or certain other serious offenses “within the Indian country” is “subject to the same law and penalties” as other people charged with those crimes in areas under exclusive federal jurisdiction.

Federal law sets the range for second-degree murder at “any term of years or for life,” according to 18 U.S.C. § 1111. The agreed 15 years falls inside that range, and there is no parole in the federal system, the office noted.

The FBI’s Farmington Resident Agency investigated with help from the Navajo Police Department, the Navajo Department of Criminal Investigations and the Farmington Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary C. Jones is prosecuting the case. The office did not announce a sentencing date.

A Harlingen, Texas, couple who ran a medical equipment business have been sentenced to a combined 190 months in federal prison for billing Medicare about $14 million for power wheelchairs, parts and repairs for just 37 patients.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. sentenced Jeremiah Yzaguirre, 47, to 110 months and his wife, Maria Luisa Yzaguirre, 47, to 80 months, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said on Oct. 23, 2026. The judge ordered them to pay $9,248,976 in restitution to Medicare and a $25,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release each. Both pleaded guilty on April 22, 2025.

The two ran Southwest Medical Homepatient in Harlingen, which was enrolled in Medicare as a supplier of durable medical equipment and said it provided parts and repairs for power wheelchairs, prosecutors said.

Hundreds of parts for a single chair

Between 2019 and 2023, the business billed Medicare about $14 million on behalf of 37 people. Spread evenly, that would be roughly $378,000 per patient. Prosecutors described multiple cases in which the couple billed for hundreds of parts and repairs on one person’s wheelchair.

For one beneficiary alone, the Yzaguirres admitted as part of their pleas that they billed about $736,072 in parts and repairs by falsely claiming they had replaced certain expensive parts hundreds of times. They also admitted they were paid millions of dollars for work that was never done and parts that were never provided, according to the office.

Investigators found they spent the money on cryptocurrency, a vehicle, electronics, collectibles and purses, prosecutors said. KRGV reported, citing the indictment, that the vehicle was a 2017 Acura NSX valued at more than $117,000 and that the collectibles included a Johnny 5 robot prop from the movie “Short Circuit,” two Legend of Zelda video games, Lego sets and anime figurines.

The $9.2 million in restitution is the amount the court ordered them to repay, not the full $14 million they billed. The release does not say how much Medicare paid in total.

The office said both would stay in custody until they are transferred to a federal prison. The FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Texas Health and Human Services inspector general, the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Texas Department of Insurance investigated the case.

A 63-year-old Jacksonville woman has been indicted on charges that she stole Department of Veterans Affairs survivor benefits for a spouse for 35 years, from June 1991 through August 2026, and lied to the VA about being single.

Gail Starks is charged with theft of government money and making a false statement to a federal agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said on Oct. 23, 2026. The government is seeking forfeiture of $397,120, which it calls the proceeds of the theft. The allegations have not been proven in court.

According to the indictment, Starks took Dependency and Indemnity Compensation payments for spousal support. When the VA looked into whether she was still eligible, she told a VA employee on Aug. 11, 2026, that she was not married, when she was, prosecutors said.

What the VA’s rules say about remarriage

Dependency and Indemnity Compensation is a tax-free VA benefit for the surviving spouse, child or parent of a service member who died in the line of duty, or of a veteran who died from a service-related injury or illness, according to the VA.

Under the VA’s eligibility rules, a surviving spouse who remarries can keep receiving the payments only in limited cases: if the remarriage happened on or after Dec. 16, 2003, when the spouse was 57 or older, or on or after Jan. 5, 2021, when the spouse was 55 or older.

The press release does not say when Starks married, who the veteran was or how the VA came to question her eligibility. It says only that the payments ran from June 1991 and that she claimed to be unmarried in August 2026.

If convicted on all counts, Starks faces up to 15 years in federal prison. The VA Office of Inspector General investigated the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jackson M. Story is prosecuting it.

A husband and wife from Anaheim, California, were sentenced on Oct. 23, 2026, to three years of probation and a $10,000 fine each for handling the money in wildlife deals that moved bear gallbladders and cougar bones out of Oregon and brought rhino horn, lion teeth and a tiger pelt in.

Linh Luu and Kevin Le pleaded guilty the same day in federal court in Eugene, Oregon, to violating the Lacey Act, the Justice Department said. From September 2019 through May 2021, they processed $51,100 in payments for a trafficker based in Vietnam, according to the department.

The government did not say the couple killed any animals. It said they fueled the illegal market by processing the money that connected buyers and sellers. Its sentencing memorandum in Luu’s case (No. 6:26-cr-00297) lays out each deal, and one of the buyers was an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent.

Cash at a Target parking lot

The memo says the trafficker, identified only as “Person #1,” told the agent there was an extra fee to route money through Luu and Le and described the early shipments as a way to build trust and test customs before multimillion-dollar deals. The couple handled payments for about half of the trafficker’s shipments, according to the memo.

The small transactions came first: $225 in fall 2019 for five black bear gallbladders sent from Oregon to Vietnam, and $1,435 in September 2020 for four lion teeth from Tanzania.

Then came rhino horn. The agent and the trafficker agreed on $21,801 for two pieces, with a $12,000 cash down payment. The cash handoff was set for Garden Grove, California. On Dec. 18, 2020, the agent met Luu and Le in the parking lot of a Target store and handed over the money, which Luu counted, the memo says. Le warned that bank transfers leave a trail, and Luu talked about U.S. banking rules for transactions over $10,000, according to the government. The rest was wired in two transfers of $4,900 and $4,901. The horn arrived in Oregon disguised as a household decoration.

In March 2021, the agent wired two payments of $4,195 each for another piece of rhino horn and $4,000 for a tiger pelt, the memo says.

Why the sentence was probation

The Lacey Act carries up to five years in prison. But under the plea deal, the government recommended the low end of the guidelines. Its calculation subtracted points for accepting responsibility, for having no criminal record and for agreeing to resolve the case early, leaving an advisory range of zero to six months.

The memo notes that lions, tigers and both rhino species are protected under the Endangered Species Act, and black bear has been listed in Appendix II of the CITES treaty since 1992. Le was charged in a separate case, No. 6:26-cr-00298.

A 36-year-old St. Louis man is charged with federal arson after two massage parlors in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, burned before dawn on Oct. 19, 2026. Investigators later pulled a body from the debris of one of them.

Quentin Hanks is charged by criminal complaint with one count of arson in connection with the fires at Fuji Super Spa, 240 S. 88th St., and One Spa, 220 S. 88th St., the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois said on Oct. 21, 2026. The fire was reported in a 911 call at about 3 a.m. The office said an autopsy was pending. The allegations have not been proven in court.

“We will carefully examine all the facts and conduct a full grand jury investigation before seeking an indictment,” U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft said.

What the ATF agent wrote

The sworn affidavit from ATF Special Agent Jeremy Johnson, filed with the complaint in case No. 3:26-mj-07186, describes how investigators identified Hanks.

When agents arrived around 6 a.m., Fuji Spa’s roof had collapsed and walls had fallen in. A second fire had burned inside the customer entrance at One Spa, about 250 yards to the north. In One Spa’s waiting room, agents found burn damage on the right side of a couch and, underneath it, a pool of hydrocarbons, residue left when synthetic foam and fabric burn. They concluded the fire was intentionally set with a small open flame such as a lighter, the affidavit says.

The building owner told the agent he was informed at the scene that a Fuji Spa employee was missing and presumed dead inside. An employee at One Spa said a man who had tried to steal from the spa a couple of weeks earlier came back drunk the night before the fire, and she let him sleep in a back room. She described him as a bartender who was missing a finger and gave investigators his phone number.

An ATF analyst matched that number to Hanks, according to the affidavit. His Facebook account showed two missing fingers and a post about the amputation, and records showed he worked as a bartender at Dave & Buster’s. License plate readers recorded his Subaru Forester in St. Louis at about 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 19, 2026, and surveillance video showed him making a purchase at the Flying J Travel Center in Alorton at 2:48 a.m.

A confession, the affidavit says

After agents found and detained him in St. Louis, Hanks admitted setting fire to couches at both spas with his lighter, the agent wrote. He said he was angry after paying for sexual services at One Spa and then drove to Fuji Spa because the same masseuse also worked there, according to the affidavit. He said he did not warn anyone and assumed people could be inside both buildings. Agents found a lighter in his car, and Hanks said it was the one he used, the affidavit says.

On Oct. 20, 2026, investigators found a deceased person in the debris at Fuji Spa. The affidavit does not name the person.

What the charge carries

The federal arson law, 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), carries 5 to 20 years in prison. If death results, the punishment can rise to any term of years or life, or death.

On Oct. 23, 2026, Magistrate Judge Mark A. Beatty ordered Hanks detained pending trial after he waived a detention hearing, according to the docket. Prosecutors have said they will take the case to a grand jury before seeking an indictment.

Two brothers from Brockton, Massachusetts, who staged a “robbery” at the credit union where one of them worked as a teller have each been sentenced to four months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs sentenced Jenel Flounoury, 30, and Justin Flounoury, 34, on Oct. 19, 2026, to four months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered them to pay $197,146 in restitution together, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. Each had pleaded guilty in July 2026 to conspiracy to commit larceny from a credit union.

A note that said “Hand it Over”

On Sept. 24, 2024, Justin left work early from his job in South Boston and was driven to Energy Credit Union in West Roxbury, where Jenel was working as a teller, prosecutors said. Wearing a hat, dark clothing, sunglasses and a mask, he walked up to his brother’s window and handed him a note that read, “Hand it Over.”

Instead of handing over the limited cash in his teller drawer, Jenel went into the credit union’s vault, filled a bag with nearly $200,000 and gave it to Justin, who left and went back to the home the brothers shared, according to the office. Cellphone location records tracked Justin’s trip, prosecutors said.

The brothers were later seen burning dark clothing in a grill at their home. A search turned up more than $160,000 in cash, including ten $100 bills with serial numbers that credit union employees had recorded before the robbery, prosecutors said. State authorities arrested both men the night after the robbery.

What the plea agreement shows

Jenel Flounoury’s plea agreement, filed July 24, 2026, in case No. 1:25-cr-10014, shows that:

• The government agreed to dismiss a second count, larceny from a credit union, at sentencing.
• Both sides calculated his offense level under the federal sentencing guidelines at 12, including a reduction because he was a “zero point offender,” meaning he had no criminal history points, and another for accepting responsibility.
• Prosecutors agreed to recommend prison time within the guidelines range the parties calculated, plus 36 months of supervised release.
• He agreed to forfeit $160,275 seized at a Brockton address on or about Sept. 25, 2024, and a $36,871 money judgment, the amount of proceeds law enforcement did not recover.

The release does not say what sentence prosecutors asked for at the Oct. 19, 2026, hearing. Both sides filed sentencing memorandums on Oct. 13, 2026, according to the court docket, but those filings are not publicly available for free.

Background

The brothers were indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2025 and pleaded not guilty at the time, Credit Union Times reported. The conspiracy charge carries up to five years in prison. The FBI, the Massachusetts State Police and the Boston Police Department investigated, with help from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

A Pompano Beach, Florida, woman has been convicted by a federal jury of taking more than $152,000 over nearly six years in Social Security retirement benefits that kept arriving in her late great-aunt’s bank account.

Asha Anderson, 48, was found guilty of theft of government funds and Social Security fraud after a six-day trial, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced on Oct. 20, 2026.

Deposits that never stopped

Anderson’s great-aunt received her Social Security benefits by direct deposit, according to court records and trial evidence described by the office. After she died, the Social Security Administration did not know about the death and kept depositing monthly payments into her account.

Between April 2017 and December 2022, Anderson repeatedly accessed that account and withdrew more than $152,000 she was not entitled to, prosecutors said. She made hundreds of cash withdrawals from ATMs, mostly in Pompano Beach and Coconut Creek.

The release does not say how the Social Security Administration eventually learned of the death or what tipped off investigators.

How deaths usually get reported

“A funeral home will usually tell us when someone dies,” the Social Security Administration says on its survivor benefits page. The release does not say whether a death report was made in this case.

“For nearly six years, Asha Anderson stole more than $152,000 in benefits intended for her deceased great-aunt,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said.

What happens next

Anderson faces up to 10 years in prison for theft of government funds and up to five years for Social Security fraud. A federal judge will set her sentence, prosecutors said; the release does not give a sentencing date. The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General investigated. The case number is 25-cr-60312.

Nearly 35 years after four girls were killed inside an Austin yogurt shop, relatives of the youngest victim are still asking whether the man authorities identified as the killer acted alone.

Shawn Ayers, whose 13-year-old sister, Amy, was among the victims, and his wife, Angie, talked about their doubts in a Fox News Digital report published October 24, 2026. They have also helped start a nonprofit meant to support police and families in other unsolved cases.

Two guns, one suspect

For Angie Ayers, the doubt comes down to the weapons. Two guns were used in the killings, a .22-caliber gun and a .380-caliber pistol, according to the report. She said Robert Eugene Brashers had never used both in any of his other known cases, though she added that she could be wrong.

At a September 29, 2025, news conference, investigators said they had no evidence that Brashers had an accomplice. Lead detective Dan Jackson noted that Brashers had been alone in all of his known crimes. “We have no evidence at this point that he had somebody with him,” Jackson told CBS Austin at the time.

Two guns do not, on their own, show that a second person was there, and Brashers cannot be asked. The question goes back to a December night in 1991.

A fire just before midnight

Shortly before midnight on December 6, 1991, a fire was reported at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop at 2949 West Anderson Lane. When firefighters put it out, they found the bodies of four girls, according to the Austin Police Department.

The victims were Jennifer Harbison, 17; her sister, Sarah Harbison, 15; Eliza Thomas, 17; and Amy Ayers, 13. Jennifer and Eliza worked at the shop, and Sarah and Amy were with them while they closed for the night. The fire and water from the shop’s sprinklers made evidence difficult to collect, police said.

It would take until September 2025 for that evidence to point to Brashers.

How the DNA led to Brashers

That month, Austin police announced a match from a South Carolina lab. The unknown male DNA profile from the yogurt shop matched Brashers’ known profile from a 1990 sexual assault and murder in Greenville, South Carolina. It was a complete 27-allele Y-STR match, a type of test that looks at DNA passed down the male line.

Austin police also described an encounter from two days after the killings. On December 8, 1991, Brashers was stopped at a westbound Border Patrol checkpoint between El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, driving a stolen car and carrying a .380 pistol, according to Austin police.

Police said the serial numbers show it was the same gun he used to kill himself during a police standoff in Missouri in 1999. Because he was dead, Brashers was never tried for the yogurt shop killings.

On February 19, 2026, Travis County District Attorney José Garza said in remarks that the evidence was clear and that Brashers committed the murders.

The four men who were wrongly accused

Garza spoke on the same day a judge cleared four men who had been accused years earlier: Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Maurice Pierce and Forrest Welborn. All four were arrested in 1999, but their cases ended differently.

Springsteen and Scott were convicted of capital murder, and both convictions were later reversed. The charges against Pierce and Welborn were dropped. DNA testing excluded all four as sources of the unknown male profile, police said.

Judge Dayna Blazey declared all four innocent, Texas Public Radio reported, and Garza apologized to them. Pierce was cleared after his death; he was killed in a 2010 incident involving an Austin police officer.

Three months later, on May 28, 2026, the Austin City Council approved a settlement of up to $35 million with Scott, Springsteen, Welborn and Pierce’s estate and family.

City documents say the men brought federal civil rights and other claims over their wrongful arrests and convictions. The documents say the agreement resolves all of those claims. The money is not for the families of the girls who were killed.

From one family’s search to other families’ cases

The idea for a nonprofit grew out of the Ayers family’s own search for answers and their talks with other families, Angie Ayers told Fox News Digital.

That idea became the National Cold Case Center. The couple co-founded it with two former prosecutors: Mindy Montford, who worked as a Travis County prosecutor, and Anne Marie Schubert, a former Sacramento County district attorney. KXAN reported the launch on October 1, 2026.

The group says it wants to pay for forensic testing and investigations, train investigators and offer round-the-clock support to victims’ families. It also hopes to build a national database that would use AI-powered pattern detection to link cases across state lines, KXAN reported. For now, that database is a goal, not a working system.

Forensic testing has moved other decades-old cases, too. On October 12, 2026, Chicago police said a former officer who died in 2006 killed 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz in 1960. In Rhode Island, DNA from a discarded water bottle led to a murder charge in a 1985 Newport killing, prosecutors say.

For the Ayers couple’s center, the most pressing need is money so it can take on its first cases, Angie Ayers said.

As Shawn Ayers told Fox News Digital, a killer could be “right next to somebody,” and people could walk past without ever knowing.

A second Birmingham, Alabama, man has been sentenced in federal court for a 2025 break-in at a pharmacy in Kennett, Missouri, in which prosecutors say the pair stole 16,800 pills, including 7,500 hydrocodone pills.

U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. sentenced Cornelius Cardez Bray, 32, to 57 months in prison on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, and ordered him to pay $2,174.66 in restitution to the pharmacy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said.

A 2:23 a.m. alarm

Police responded to a burglary alarm at about 2:23 a.m. on March 13, 2025, at Harris Pharmacy on First Street in Kennett and found a broken door, KFVS12 reported that day. A white car fled a traffic stop at speeds over 130 mph and crashed in Pemiscot County, the station reported.

Federal prosecutors said a responding officer spotted a car with Tennessee license plates leaving town and remembered that, a few days earlier, someone in a car with Tennessee plates had been photographing another pharmacy. When the officer tried to stop the car, it sped off and crashed. Officers found numerous pill bottles in the wreckage, along with Bray’s wallet and cellphone, prosecutors said.

The men took 16,800 pills, including 7,500 hydrocodone pills and 7,500 pills containing benzodiazepine drugs, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Accounts differ on who was driving

Federal prosecutors described Bray as the driver for David Jerome Evans, who broke into the pharmacy, and said Evans was arrested at the crash scene while Bray fled and was arrested later.

In a separate state case, the Dunklin County prosecutor’s office said Evans admitted after his arrest to driving the car, KAIT reported in June 2026. Evans was sentenced in that state case to 25 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on charges including second-degree burglary and aggravated fleeing, the station reported.

Both pleaded guilty in federal court

Bray and Evans, 32, each pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of intent to steal a controlled substance and one count of possession with intent to distribute hydrocodone, prosecutors said. Evans was sentenced earlier to 78 months in federal prison.

The Kennett Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case.

An Oklahoma City man with several prior felony convictions has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for stealing about 2,000 rounds of ammunition from sporting goods stores by hiding the boxes in his clothes.

U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones II sentenced Robert Alexander Pitts, 39, on Oct. 22, 2026, and ordered three years of supervised release after his prison term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma said. In announcing the sentence, the judge noted Pitts’ criminal history and the need to promote respect for the law, according to the office.

Boxes in his pockets and waistband

In the fall of 2025, Pitts stole ammunition on multiple occasions from Bass Pro and Cabela’s stores in Oklahoma City, according to public records cited by prosecutors. He hid boxes of ammunition in his pants pockets, hoodie pockets, waistband and elsewhere, taking 2,000 rounds in all, the office said.

Why ammunition alone was a federal crime

“Federal law prohibits the possession of ammunition by convicted felons,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted. Pitts had several earlier felony convictions in Oklahoma County District Court, prosecutors said:

• Attempted larceny of merchandise, case CF-2013-2650.
• Larceny of merchandise from a retailer and false declaration of ownership to a pawnbroker, case CF-2015-5544.
• Possession of cocaine and marijuana, case CF-2015-6365.
• Felon in possession of a firearm, case CF-2020-426.

From indictment to sentence

A federal grand jury charged Pitts on Dec. 16, 2025, with being a felon in possession of ammunition and with possessing stolen ammunition, prosecutors said. The case is No. 5:25-cr-00517. He pleaded guilty on April 13, 2026, admitting that he knowingly possessed ammunition he had stolen despite his prior felony convictions.

The Oklahoma City Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case.

A federal correctional officer at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in central Florida has been indicted on charges that he took money to smuggle contraband, including a controlled substance, to an inmate.

Weston Burney, 34, of Webster, Florida, is charged with one count of receiving a bribe as a public official and one count of providing contraband to a federal prisoner, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida announced on Oct. 23, 2026. The allegations have not been proven in court, and he is presumed innocent.

What the indictment alleges

Between February and June 2025, Burney, a Bureau of Prisons employee, accepted money in exchange for smuggling contraband into the Coleman complex, in violation of his duties as a correctional officer, according to the indictment.

The contraband included tobacco and MDMB-4en-PINACA, which the indictment describes as a Schedule I controlled substance, and he provided it to an inmate in return for payments, prosecutors said. The release does not name the inmate or say how much Burney was paid.

What the court docket shows

A grand jury returned the indictment on Oct. 20, 2026, and prosecutors asked the court to seal it and related documents, which a magistrate judge granted the same day, according to the docket in case No. 5:26-cr-00127. The docket records Burney’s arrest on Oct. 22, 2026. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Barber.

Possible penalties

If convicted, Burney faces up to 15 years in prison on the bribery charge and up to 10 years on the contraband charge, prosecutors said. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of any property traceable to proceeds of the alleged offense.

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and the Bureau of Prisons are investigating. Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Moon Palacios will prosecute the case.

The owner of a Florida telemedicine company has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading a $46.2 million Medicare fraud conspiracy built on orthotic braces and genetic tests that patients did not need, the Justice Department said.

Christopher Harwood, 44, of Fort Lauderdale, was also ordered to pay $17,942,402 in restitution to Medicare and to forfeit $10,431,463, the department announced on Oct. 23, 2026. He pleaded guilty on March 27, 2026, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, according to the HHS Office of Inspector General.

How the scheme worked

Harwood owned and ran a telemedicine company called TelevisitMD, prosecutors said. He and his co-conspirators targeted Medicare patients with aggressive telemarketing campaigns and talked them into accepting orthotic braces and genetic tests they did not need.

Harwood paid doctors to approve the orders, according to court documents described by the department. Those doctors did not follow Medicare’s telemedicine rules, had no real medical relationship with the patients and often signed orders without any meaningful interaction with them, prosecutors said.

Harwood then sold the signed orders to durable medical equipment suppliers, laboratories and marketers who were part of the scheme, the department said. He also owned several Florida medical equipment companies that he used to bill Medicare millions of dollars for braces patients did not want or need.

$46.2 million billed, $17.9 million paid

In all, Harwood caused $46.2 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, and Medicare paid $17.9 million, according to the department. He personally made more than $10.4 million, prosecutors said. The conspiracy ran for more than six years.

Who investigated

The FBI and the HHS Office of Inspector General investigated. Trial Attorney Owen Dunn of the Justice Department’s Health Care Fraud Section prosecuted the case, with the announcement made jointly with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Two men with prior felony convictions have been sentenced to federal prison after an investigation that began when police noticed real guns in music videos and livestreams they posted online, prosecutors in Washington, D.C., said.

U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan sentenced Travis Foster, 25, to 57 months and Reginald Monroe, 23, to 46 months, each followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced on Oct. 22, 2026.

Both men pleaded guilty in July before Judge AliKhan. Foster admitted unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and possession with intent to distribute marijuana; Monroe admitted unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and unlawful possession of a machine gun.

What investigators saw online

Law enforcement began monitoring social media in 2023 after seeing Foster and associates in high-resolution music videos and posts with guns fitted with extended magazines, according to court documents described by the office. Investigators recognized the guns as real and noted “micro draco” pistols that can fire rifle rounds, prosecutors said.

A nightclub, a parking garage and two cars

On Oct. 19, 2023, officers followed Foster, Monroe and others from a dinner to a nightclub in Northwest Washington, then to a nearby parking garage, prosecutors said. There, officers found 842 suspected fentanyl pills and several guns in a stolen Audi Q7, and six more guns in a Chrysler 300.

Prescription paperwork in a backpack in the Chrysler tied Foster to some of the guns, according to the office. Surveillance video showed Monroe getting out of the Chrysler, and DNA later linked him to a Glock pistol found in the Audi and another found in the Chrysler, prosecutors said.

Investigators later recovered Instagram voice messages in which Foster called the seized guns his and talked about replacing them, the office said. A search of his home turned up a loaded pistol with an extended magazine, more than a pound of marijuana and a money counter.

Prior convictions

Foster had previously pleaded guilty to an October 2019 armed robbery of a car and was sentenced to 96 months; he committed this offense three months after his release on July 14, 2023, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Monroe had two pistols modified to fire as machine guns, each with a 22-round magazine, and this was his fourth conviction for illegally possessing a gun in six years, prosecutors said. Monroe is also awaiting sentencing in a D.C. Superior Court armed robbery case.

Federal law makes it illegal for anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison to possess a firearm or ammunition, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).

The ATF, the FBI and the Metropolitan Police Department investigated the case.

A Pennsylvania contractor has admitted paying about $70,000 in cash kickbacks to the former business administrator of the Hillsborough Township School District in New Jersey, in exchange for approval of overtime hours he never worked.

Kenneth Gratto, 55, of Dingman’s Ferry, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty on Oct. 22, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch to embezzling more than $156,000 from the school district, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey said. He agreed to forfeit about $156,150.

The former administrator, Aiman Mahmoud, still faces charges, and those allegations have not been proven in court. He is presumed innocent.

A construction project and a site supervisor

Mahmoud was the district’s business administrator from 2008 through the end of 2021 and helped oversee a multimillion-dollar project, approved by a 2019 referendum, to upgrade school buildings and build a new school, prosecutors said. The district has more than 7,000 students in nine schools, according to the May 2026 indictment of both men.

In early 2021, Mahmoud asked one of the project companies to hire Gratto as a site supervisor to coordinate work and handle safety oversight, the indictment says. Gratto was paid $100 an hour for regular time and $150 an hour for overtime, and the district reimbursed the company, according to the indictment.

Weekends he never worked

Gratto admitted that through the second half of 2021 he regularly claimed more than 12 hours of overtime on both Saturdays and Sundays, even though he did no work on those days, prosecutors said. Mahmoud approved the timesheets.

After he was paid, Gratto withdrew Mahmoud’s share in cash, put it in an envelope and left it at a place Mahmoud chose, usually in Mahmoud’s unlocked school vehicle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The indictment says Mahmoud sometimes texted him instructions on where to deliver it.

Hours that could top 24 a day

The indictment also describes a second company that hired Gratto for HVAC work in about October 2021. It says Mahmoud asked that company to pay Gratto in lump sums rather than submit timesheets, which would have shown Gratto claiming hours for both companies that potentially exceeded 24 hours a day. That company made three lump-sum payments totaling more than $107,000 for work between mid-October and late November 2021, according to the indictment.

What happens next

The embezzlement charge carries up to 10 years in prison. Gratto’s sentencing is scheduled for March 4, 2027. The FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office investigated the case.

A Dundalk, Maryland, man has pleaded guilty in federal court to spray-painting swastikas on headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Baltimore County, admitting he chose the cemetery because it is Jewish.

George Horn, 36, pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2026, to damaging religious property, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said.

Twelve gravestones in July 2023

According to his plea, Horn entered the Ohr Knesseth Israel Anshe Sfard Cemetery in Dundalk in July 2023 and used black spray paint to deface multiple gravestones, mostly with swastikas. Days later, caretakers found 12 gravestones painted with swastikas and other symbols, prosecutors said. The cemetery was established in the late 19th century.

Despite cleanup efforts, the outline of a swastika remained on some stones, and some had to be replaced, the office said. Two were completely replaced and others needed thorough cleaning, costing the Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore more than $6,500, The Baltimore Banner reported, citing the plea agreement. Horn agreed to pay for the damage, the Banner reported.

What investigators found

Prosecutors said evidence showed Horn had antisemitic animus toward Jewish people. Investigators found antisemitic messages and other items in his car and storage unit, including a journal with references to Nazism and white supremacy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On his phone, they found a nine-second video of Horn spray-painting two gravestones and a translated copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” the office said. The Banner reported that the video shows his hand, which has a distinctive tattoo.

The FBI, the Baltimore County Police Department and the Baltimore Police Department investigated, with help from the Anti-Defamation League.

What happens next

Horn faces up to three years in prison. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox scheduled sentencing for Jan. 14, 2027.

A former MBTA track inspector has pleaded guilty to taking part in schemes to fake Red Line track inspections and to collect overtime pay for hours he did not work, federal prosecutors say.

Andy Vicente, 37, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2026, in federal court in Boston to conspiracy to falsify records and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. He was arrested and charged with four others in May 2025, and prosecutors filed a superseding information against him on Sept. 8, 2026.

Inspections logged on an app, but not done

Red Line track inspectors recorded their work on MBTA-issued phones using an app called MaxTrax, which generated a report for each inspection, prosecutors said.

From Jan. 1, 2024, to Oct. 16, 2024, Vicente and his co-conspirators skipped inspections or helped submit falsified reports, according to the office. They filled in the reports with information found online and stretched the recorded length of the “inspections” in the app so that senior MBTA executives would not complain about how long inspections took, prosecutors said.

When the case was first charged in May 2025, coverage put the alleged falsification between Sept. 3, 2024, and Oct. 15, 2024, GBH News reported. That was near the end of a year-long repair campaign to remove speed restrictions on the subway, the outlet reported.

A car repair shop in the train yard

During some of the times his inspections were logged, Vicente was inside Cabot Yard, an MBTA site with a breakroom for Red Line inspection staff, according to court documents described by the office. The yard also has a large garage that Vicente and others used as an auto repair shop for non-MBTA vehicles during work hours, prosecutors said.

Vicente bought vehicles at auto insurance auctions and sold them mainly to a co-conspirator, prosecutors said. On Sept. 19, 2024, while he was supposedly doing a track inspection, surveillance video showed him sitting in the Cabot garage holding his phones, according to the office.

Overtime shifts skipped or slept through

During the same period, Vicente and the others submitted false overtime sheets, prosecutors said. Instead of working overtime shifts, they skipped them, showed up hours late, or scanned in at the start and disappeared for hours, sometimes to sleep in their vehicles. A co-conspirator paid Vicente for the vehicles and for repair work with MBTA money from the overtime system, according to the office.

What happens next

The falsified-records conspiracy charge carries up to five years in prison, and the wire fraud conspiracy charge up to 20 years, prosecutors said. The office did not announce a sentencing date. The cases against the other defendants remain allegations, and they are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general and the U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general investigated, with help from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI.

A Philadelphia man who robbed three West Philadelphia stores at gunpoint over two weeks in 2025 has been sentenced to 238 months in federal prison, just under 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Costello sentenced Ibrahem Johnson, 25, on Oct. 21, 2026, and ordered five years of supervised release after his prison term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.

Johnson was indicted in August 2025 and pleaded guilty in May 2026 to three counts of Hobbs Act robbery, which is robbery that affects interstate commerce; two counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence; and one count of possessing a firearm as a felon.

Three stores in 14 days

Prosecutors laid out the robberies this way:

• May 28, 2025, evening: Johnson robbed a Family Dollar on the 5700 block of Walnut Street at gunpoint, telling employees to “comply or get shot,” and fled with cash from a register.
• June 8, 2025, shortly after 9 p.m.: He robbed a Rite Aid pharmacy on the 5600 block of Chestnut Street, pointing a gun at an employee and saying, “give me the money or I’ll shoot you.”
• June 11, 2025, morning: He robbed a Family Dollar on the 5800 block of Woodland Avenue, again pointing a gun at an employee and ordering the worker to “get back” before leaving with cash.

Recognized from a radio alert

About half an hour after the third robbery, a Philadelphia police officer recognized Johnson from a radio alert, prosecutors said. After a brief foot chase, officers arrested him and found a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun in a bag he was carrying.

The Philadelphia Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case.

What the gun charges carry

Under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), a person who brandishes a firearm during a crime of violence must be sentenced to “not less than 7 years,” on top of the punishment for the crime itself, and that term may not “run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not say how Judge Costello arrived at 238 months.

A man from Mexico who prosecutors say spent more than 40 years in the United States under the name of an American baby who died in infancy has been convicted of passport fraud and aggravated identity theft.

A federal jury convicted Vidal Blanco-Blas, 62, on both counts on Oct. 16, 2026, after a three-day trial and about two hours of deliberation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said on Oct. 21, 2026. A grand jury had indicted him in October 2024 in case No. 3:24-cr-00419.

The identity of a 3-month-old

According to evidence at trial, Blanco-Blas entered the U.S. more than 40 years ago using the identity of Julio Cesar Torres, a U.S. citizen who died in Mexico when he was about 3 months old, prosecutors said. Using that identity, Blanco-Blas obtained a Social Security number, a Texas driver’s license, a voter registration card and a U.S. passport.

Witnesses testified that he kept up the false identity in his family life, too. He told his daughter to say in public that he was her “uncle,” Julio Cesar Torres, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prior drug convictions under the stolen name

Prosecutors said Blanco-Blas has a significant criminal history in the U.S. He was previously sentenced to 84 months for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, 120 months for possession of marijuana, and 21 months for possession with intent to distribute up to 30 kilograms of marijuana, all under the stolen identity, according to the office.

How it unraveled

The identity held until April 11, 2023, when he applied to renew the passport in Greenville, Texas, prosecutors said. Through “advancements in investigative techniques,” the U.S. Department of State learned of the fraud and found his true identity, the office said. The release does not describe those techniques.

The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service investigated, with help from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general and the State Department’s National Passport Center.

What happens next

Blanco-Blas faces up to 12 years in federal prison, prosecutors said. U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay set sentencing for March 22, 2027.

The man who shot and killed a St. Louis County woman in 2023, in a plot her own son set up to collect on her life insurance, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey sentenced Eric Washington, 48, of Jennings, Missouri, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said. Washington had pleaded guilty in July 2026 to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire resulting in personal injury.

A policy taken out in 2019

Andrew C. Hubbard applied for a $150,000 insurance policy on his mother, Andreaia Worthem, in April 2019, according to plea agreements described in a Sept. 22, 2026, release from the same office.

Around June 2023, Hubbard planned to kill her with cocaine base spiked with a lethal dose of fentanyl or heroin, prosecutors said. He discussed the plan with Kim Alexis Mosley and promised her $50,000 if it worked. He offered his cousin, Washington, $10,000 to give his mother the drugs.

“It’s done”

Around 10 p.m. on July 6, 2023, Washington picked Worthem up at her home in St. Louis County and drove her to St. Louis, where he shot her multiple times, prosecutors said. He left her body in an alley in the 4400 block of Kennerly Avenue. Just after 11 p.m., he called Hubbard and said, “It’s done,” according to the September release. He later told Hubbard the drugs hadn’t worked, so he shot her instead.

Police found Worthem, 53, in the alley early the next morning. Prosecutors said Washington used her drug addiction to get her to go with him, and that her wounds showed she tried to defend herself.

Hubbard paid Washington $450 plus cocaine and marijuana. Impatient for the promised $10,000, Washington later called the insurance company to ask about the payout, saying he had “done some work” for Hubbard, prosecutors said.

In a letter to the court, Worthem’s sister wrote that the family had taken Washington in “as family.” “My sister was a beautiful, funny, phenomenal and spontaneous woman,” she wrote.

What happens next

Hubbard, 40, of Maryland Heights, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 1, 2026. Mosley, 33, pleaded guilty to the same charge as Washington and is set to be sentenced on Jan. 20, 2027, prosecutors said. The case is United States v. Hubbard, No. 4:23-cr-00562.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI investigated the case.

A Bergen County man has been charged with 28 counts of wire fraud, accused of collecting paychecks for a seasonal job at the Hudson County Parks Department that he never actually did, and then claiming unemployment benefits when the job ended.

Alfonso A. Zamarra, 58, of Rutherford, New Jersey, made his first court appearance in Newark on Oct. 21, 2026, and was released on a $100,000 bond, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey said. Each count carries up to 20 years in prison. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Three terms on the payroll

The criminal complaint, sworn by an FBI task force officer on Oct. 20, 2026, says Zamarra was hired as a parks “Seasonal Assistant” three times: from December 2019 to July 2020, from October 2021 to April 2022, and from March to September 2023. A high-ranking Parks Department official, identified only as “Individual-1” and described as a longtime associate, was listed as his reference and signed his hiring form, the complaint says.

When a county employee asked in 2021 about his attendance and work before rehiring him, Individual-1 replied, “My referral has to be good I wouldn’t have anything less,” according to the complaint.

Over about 49 pay periods, the county paid Zamarra about $45,327.45 in wages, deposited directly to his bank account, the complaint says.

How investigators say they knew he wasn’t working

The complaint lays out three kinds of evidence:

• Phone location data. His phone was rarely in Hudson County during the periods he supposedly worked, the complaint says. In four examples it lists, his phone was in Rutherford, in Bergen County, or in Worcester, Massachusetts, during hours his timesheets claimed he was working.
• Airline records. United Airlines records show he flew to Naples, Italy, on June 29, 2023, and returned on July 9, 2023, during two pay periods in which his timesheets claimed 70 hours each, according to the complaint.
• Signatures. His signature varied widely across 29 timesheets, in repeated batches, which the officer wrote suggests other people sometimes signed for him. About 16 of the 29 sheets had no supervisor signature, and the supervisor whose name appears on others told agents he or she never signed them and never supervised Zamarra.

Many of the shifts listed on his sheets, such as 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., are not shifts seasonal parks employees work, the complaint says.

Unemployment claims between terms

Seasonal workers could not work more than six months in a 12-month period, so between terms Zamarra applied for unemployment, prosecutors said. The complaint says he filed claims in 2020, 2022 and 2023 containing false information, including saying he had been “la[id] off” when his six-month term had simply ended. It puts his unemployment payments from 2020 through 2024 at about $57,021.

What happens next

The case was brought by complaint, which is a charging document used before a grand jury indictment. The FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general, Customs and Border Protection and the Port Authority Police Department investigated, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The complaint does not name Individual-1 or say whether anyone else will be charged.

Six people from southeastern Massachusetts have been charged with running or taking part in a sham-marriage business that, federal prosecutors say, sold fake weddings to immigrants living in the country illegally so they could apply for legal status.

Five of them were arrested on Oct. 21, 2026, and the sixth is already serving a state prison sentence for a firearms offense, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. All six are charged with conspiracy to harbor people in the country illegally, harboring, conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and marriage fraud. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Who is charged

• Jennifer Gonzalez, 43, of Fall River, described by prosecutors as the leader.
• Amara Pugh, 31, of Fall River, who prosecutors say worked as the business’s “secretary.”
• Erica Daniels, 29, Chreise Alejandro, 39, and Jaylin Hill, 26, all of Fall River, and Jessica Tavares, 31, of Attleboro.

Prosecutors said Gonzalez paid Daniels, Alejandro, Tavares and Hill, all U.S. citizens, to marry her customers so the customers could file fraudulent documents with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

$38,000 to $40,000 per marriage

According to court documents described by the office, the operation arranged about 18 to 20 sham marriages a year and usually charged $38,000 to $40,000 for each. Prosecutors said Gonzalez has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for at least the last 10 years.

Gonzalez coached customers on how to make the marriages look real, including setting up life insurance policies and joint bank accounts and taking selfie-style photos as a couple, prosecutors said. She told them it would take three to four months to build enough paperwork to apply, and had them sign “contracts” for her services.

During the investigation, Gonzalez was recorded on video and audio directing the printing and signing of a disguised “loan” contract and accepting a $3,000 cash down payment, according to the office. She allegedly told the customer the contract left out the spouse because naming the spouse would be “incriminating.”

Customers often made ongoing $500 monthly payments to their assigned spouse or someone close to that spouse, prosecutors said. Gonzalez also allegedly said she used her earnings to buy businesses and real estate in the Dominican Republic.

SNAP benefits, too

Several defendants claimed on Massachusetts SNAP applications that they had never been married, even while filing immigration petitions for their sham spouses, according to court documents. Prosecutors said Gonzalez spent more than $120,000 in SNAP benefits while running the ring.

“What an affront the alleged conduct revealed here today must be to those who play by the rules,” U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said, The Associated Press reported. Gonzalez’s attorney had no comment, according to the AP.

What happens next

The defendants’ initial court appearances were scheduled for Oct. 21, 2026, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and a detention hearing for Gonzalez was set for Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, the AP reported. The harboring charges carry up to 10 years in prison each, prosecutors said. The office called the investigation ongoing.

An Atlanta social media personality known online as “Shawty Dred” has been indicted on federal charges accusing him of running a years-long scheme that drained about $4 million in food assistance meant for low-income families.

A federal grand jury indicted Mercedes Reshard New, 39, of Atlanta, on Oct. 7, 2026, and he was arrested on Oct. 13, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said on Oct. 21, 2026. He faces 46 counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count each of SNAP fraud and illegal transactions with access devices. The allegations have not been proven in court.

What SNAP is and how the scheme allegedly worked

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a federal program that gives low-income households monthly benefits to buy food. In Georgia, people apply through the state’s Division of Family & Children Services, which mails approved recipients an electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, card.

Between January 2020 and July 2026, New controlled more than 350 fraudulent SNAP accounts that were created with stolen identities, prosecutors said. He had EBT cards mailed to addresses around metro Atlanta and applied for his company, Shawty Dred LLC, to become an authorized SNAP retailer, according to the indictment and other court information described by the office.

From April 2024 to November 2025, New used the fraudulently obtained cards and a card reader tied to his company to take more than $660,000 in benefits, prosecutors said.

Store authorization pulled, then a local arrest

The U.S. Department of Agriculture revoked his store’s authorization in November 2025, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. About two weeks later, local police arrested New on accusations of selling SNAP benefits at a metro Atlanta store and seized 14 EBT cards issued to other people.

After that, New had replacement cards mailed to his store and to other Atlanta-area addresses, prosecutors said. Over the course of the scheme, they said, the state was duped into moving about $4.6 million in benefits into the fake accounts, and about $4 million was taken out.

Jets, Rolls-Royces and stacks of cash online

Prosecutors pointed to New’s social media. His Instagram account, which has more than 2 million followers, shows him flying on private jets, posing with Rolls-Royce and Maybach vehicles and handling stacks of cash, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. FOX 5 Atlanta and CBS News Atlanta reported the same figures from the indictment.

“New allegedly stole over $4 million meant for poor families who need help putting food on the table,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said.

What happens next

New was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending further proceedings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The USDA Office of Inspector General and the FBI investigated the case, with help from the Georgia Department of Human Services’ inspector general. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracia M. King is prosecuting it.

A Pensacola man who robbed gas station and convenience store clerks at gunpoint over several years has been convicted by a federal jury in 14 armed robberies in Escambia County, Florida.

Deshawn I. Donson, 23, faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in January 2027, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida said when it announced the verdict on Oct. 20, 2026. The trial was held in federal court in Pensacola.

A hoodie, a mask and a pistol

In 14 separate robberies between 2022 and 2025, Donson wore a hooded sweatshirt and a mask to hide his identity, walked into the stores with a semiautomatic pistol, pointed it at the clerks and demanded money, prosecutors said.

All of the victims testified at trial about being robbed at gunpoint while they tried to empty the cash register, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Investigators identified Donson through electronic geolocation information that tied him to several of the robberies, prosecutors said. Donson is a convicted felon who had served time in state prison, so he was barred from having the gun he used.

The last robbery and the chase

Law enforcement caught Donson as he fled his final robbery on May 18, 2025, which led to a chase at more than 100 mph through Escambia County, prosecutors said. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, with help from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, arrested him after the chase and seized evidence from his vehicle.

WKRG reported at the time that the robbery happened around 11 p.m. that Sunday at the Raceway on Airport Boulevard. The chase ended in the West Florida Hospital parking lot when a deputy rammed the side of his vehicle, and deputies said they found a gun and a bag full of cash inside, the station reported.

“We were aware of Donson and were conducting surveillance, and we were keeping track of where Donson was coming and going,” Sheriff Chip Simmons said at the time, WKRG reported.

From 18 robberies to 14

When prosecutors announced the federal indictment in June 2025, they said it charged Donson in connection with 18 armed robberies between 2022 and 2025, with counts of interference with commerce by threats or violence, brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The conviction announcement refers to 14 robberies and does not explain the difference.

“No one should have to wonder whether they will make it home safely at the end of their shift,” Simmons said in the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s announcement of the verdict.

The ATF, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the Pensacola Police Department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David L. Goldberg and Thomas Geeker prosecuted it.

A Shreveport man who slipped away from a sheriff’s deputy outside a hospital in September 2026 has been indicted on a federal charge of carjacking a man in Bossier City shortly after his escape.

A federal grand jury returned the indictment against Tre’veon Jackson, 24, on Oct. 7, 2026, charging him with carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana said. The charge carries up to 25 years in federal prison. The case number is 5:26-cr-00399. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The escape

Jackson escaped from a Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy outside Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport around 10:15 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2026, after being taken there for a medical evaluation, KSLA reported, citing the sheriff’s office. The federal prosecutors’ release says only that he escaped “during a medical transport.”

Shortly afterward, Jackson approached a man outside a hotel in Bossier City, violently assaulted him and took his vehicle, according to court documents described by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors say he then led officers on a chase at speeds over 110 mph before crashing the vehicle and running away on foot.

The release does not name the hotel or describe the victim’s injuries.

Several days on the run

Local, state and federal agencies worked together to find him, KSLA reported. Jackson was at large for several days before the U.S. Marshals Service arrested him in Marshall, Texas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr. announced the capture on Sept. 22, 2026, and Jackson was then held at the Harrison County Jail in Texas on federal charges, KSLA reported. He was in federal custody when the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced the indictment on Oct. 16, 2026.

Why he was in custody

KSLA has reported that Jackson was the man accused of murdering Horace Sparks in Shreveport, and that Sparks’ family demanded answers about the escape and about why they were not properly notified. That murder case is separate from the federal carjacking charge, and the murder accusation has not been proven in court.

The FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bossier City Police Department, the Marshall Police Department, the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas State Technical College Police Department and the Texas Rangers investigated the carjacking. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Allison Foster and Samuel Crichton are prosecuting it.

The case is part of the Western District of Louisiana’s GATOR Task Force, a multi-agency effort aimed at violent crime in the Shreveport and Bossier City area, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

A member of the Trinitarios gang who shot Milton Grant in the head during a robbery in Manhattan in 2021 and took his watch has been sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff imposed the sentence on Ramon Rodriguez, 22, of the Bronx, also known as “Pollo,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Oct. 19, 2026. A jury convicted Rodriguez on Feb. 20, 2026, after a two-week trial, of Grant’s murder, the attempted murder of Grant’s friend and other racketeering and firearms offenses.

He also received a concurrent 10-year term in a separate case, in which Rodriguez pleaded guilty to an assault on another inmate at a federal jail in Brooklyn. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Two robberies, eight days apart

Prosecutors said Rodriguez was a member of the Trinitarios from at least 2018 through 2025 and an associate of the Shooting Boys, a Trinitarios set that operated mainly in the Bronx and Manhattan. Members of the set committed murders, attempted murders, robberies, drug trafficking, fraud and witness retaliation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On June 13, 2021, Rodriguez and members of the Shooting Boys committed a robbery outside a Bronx nightclub, during which Rodriguez shot a man in the leg, causing significant injuries, prosecutors said.

Eight days later, on June 21, 2021, the group carried out another robbery outside a Manhattan nightclub and targeted Grant for his watch. Rodriguez shot Grant in the head, killing him, and took the watch from his body, prosecutors said. When Grant’s friend ran, Rodriguez fired at him too.

Grant was 34 and was killed in Inwood, in Upper Manhattan, CBS New York reported in June 2023, when investigators announced that Rodriguez, then 18, had become the fourth person arrested in the case. Police said at the time that three armed men tried to rob Grant in his car and shot him as he tried to drive away.

An attack inside the jail

After his arrest, Rodriguez was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said he kept taking part in the gang there, including by repeatedly having weapons.

On Dec. 3, 2023, Rodriguez and other members and associates of the Shooting Boys ambushed an inmate the gang suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, and stabbed and slashed him, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The inmate was seriously injured.

“Rodriguez decided that a watch was worth more than Milton Grant’s life, murdering him to steal it and then trying to kill Grant’s friend as he fled,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said.

The New York City Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case. It was prosecuted by the office’s Violent Organizations and Crime Unit.

Two former U.S. Postal Service clerks who stole thousands of U.S. Treasury checks from sorting machines at a Philadelphia mail plant have been sentenced to federal prison, along with the two men who bought the checks from them and resold them on the messaging app Telegram.

U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson sentenced the last two of the four, the former clerks, on Oct. 19, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said. All four had pleaded guilty in 2026 to conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds and mail theft.

The sentences

• Saahir Irby, 28, of Philadelphia, a former mail processing clerk: 63 months in prison, $10,841,731.83 in restitution and $72,510 in forfeiture.
• Tauheed Tucker, 25, of Philadelphia, a former mail processing clerk: 42 months, $2,628,984.39 in restitution and $28,200 in forfeiture.
• Cory Scott, 26, of Ardmore, Pennsylvania: 70 months, sentenced Oct. 14, 2026, with $10,841,731.83 in restitution and $298,973 in forfeiture.
• Alexander Telewoda, 26, of Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania: 78 months, sentenced in August 2026, with $10,841,731.83 in restitution and $162,144.50 in forfeiture.

Each man was also given three years of supervised release.

How the checks left the building

Irby and Tucker worked as mail processing clerks at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. Between June 2023 and September 2024, they took thousands of envelopes holding Treasury checks out of the mail sorting machines and carried the checks out of the plant, prosecutors said.

They sold the checks to Scott and Telewoda, who advertised them on Telegram. Once a buyer paid, Scott and Telewoda mailed the checks to them, and buyers around the country tried to cash them, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Over the course of the scheme, the clerks sold the pair stolen checks with a combined face value of more than $84 million, prosecutors said. Scott’s and Telewoda’s customers managed to cash about $11 million of them at financial institutions.

A figure that grew

When the four were charged in June 2025, prosecutors put the face value at more than $80 million, FreightWaves reported at the time. Irby also faced a separate mail theft charge tied to August 2024, the outlet reported. By the time the four pleaded guilty, the figure was more than $84 million, according to a May 5, 2026, release from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general, one of the agencies on the case.

The case was investigated by the USPS Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the Social Security Administration’s inspector general. The Montgomery County Detective Bureau, the Lower Merion Township Police Department and the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service also helped. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Rice prosecuted it.

Max Crime has also covered a separate case in Tampa, where three people were charged with trying to steal more than $2 million in Treasury checks taken from the mail.

A suburban Chicago laboratory executive has been charged with billing a federal COVID-19 program about $66.2 million for hundreds of thousands of PCR tests that, prosecutors say, his lab never ran.

A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Rajesh “Raj” Patel, 52, of Schaumburg, Illinois, on Oct. 19, 2026, on five counts of wire fraud, the Justice Department said. The case, No. 1:26-cr-00540, is assigned to U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The lab and the specimen deal

The nine-page indictment does not name the lab. It calls it “Laboratory A,” a clinical laboratory in Hillside, Illinois, that processed PCR tests during the pandemic, and says Patel was its chief operating officer. The Justice Department described him as the lab’s co-owner and chief operating officer.

In around March 2021, the lab signed an agreement with Meridian Medical Staffing Inc. to test specimens that Meridian said it had collected from patients at its collection sites, according to the indictment. The lab paid Meridian at least about $60.3 million for the specimens and for the patient information it then used to bill the government.

Many of those patients “either did not exist or never submitted COVID-19 test specimens to Meridian,” the indictment says. Only Patel is charged in it.

What prosecutors say Patel did

Between about May 2021 and April 2022, Patel created fake “negative” results in the lab’s computer system for at least about 380,000 PCR tests on Meridian specimens that the lab never completed, the indictment alleges. He then released those results so they could be sent to the supposed patients and so the lab could bill for the tests, prosecutors say.

The bills went to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Uninsured Program, which paid for COVID-19 testing for people without health insurance. Providers had to certify that the information on each claim was true. The program stopped taking testing claims after March 22, 2022, for lack of funds, the law firm Foley & Lardner wrote at the time.

According to the indictment, the lab submitted at least about $66.2 million in false claims to the program and was paid at least about $44.1 million. Patel then transferred about $28 million from the lab’s account into accounts the indictment calls “the Raj Patel Accounts,” prosecutors say.

The indictment also says Patel tried to hide the scheme by telling others to leave the Meridian tests out of the results the lab reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The state required labs to report every COVID-19 result for Illinois residents, positive or negative.

Five claims, $185 each

Each of the five counts is built on a single claim. All five were for tests with service dates in November and December 2021, billed between Dec. 31, 2021, and Feb. 17, 2022. The lab billed $185 for each and was paid $123.46, the indictment says. The claims were processed through a server in Minnesota, according to the indictment.

Each count carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of any proceeds traced to the scheme.

“This defendant allegedly exploited a global crisis for personal gain, fabricating hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests – then billing the taxpayer for it,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s Fraud Division.

The FBI’s Chicago field office and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General investigated the case. Trial Attorney Claire Sobczak Pacelli of the Fraud Division’s Health Care Fraud Section is prosecuting it.

The calls and letters brought good news. Elderly people were told they had won a sweepstakes. Then came the catch: before they could collect, they had to pay taxes and fees.

There was no prize, federal prosecutors say. One of the people behind those calls, Alando Gentles, 43, of Jamaica, has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for wire fraud conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina announced on Oct. 7, 2026. He was also ordered to pay $349,433.75 in restitution to the victims of his crime.

How the scheme worked

Investigators from Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service traced the operation to people in Myrtle Beach. Prosecutors called it a “cash award/lottery telemarketing scam” with connections inside the United States and abroad.

It ran from around June 2015 until around May 2022. Over those nearly seven years, the scheme as a whole involved at least 115 victims, according to prosecutors.

As prosecutors describe it, the pitch followed a pattern. Gentles and his co-conspirators contacted elderly people by phone and mail, falsely told them they had won, and said taxes and fees had to be paid first.

Victims paid those fees in many forms, prosecutors said: prepaid cards, Postal Service and bank money orders, cash or personal checks sent by mail, deposits into co-conspirators’ bank accounts and wire transfers.

His part, from Jamaica

Gentles took part in the scheme from Jamaica, prosecutors said. Besides calling victims, he received wire transfers of the scheme’s money there and made ATM withdrawals in Jamaica from an account holding the scheme’s funds.

After he was indicted, he was extradited to face charges in the United States. The Gleaner reported on Oct. 18, 2024, that Gentles had been sent to the United States the day before and handed over to authorities in South Carolina to face mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges, citing a U.S. official.

Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the Postal Inspection Service’s Criminal Investigation Group, told the newspaper that Gentles was the fifth Jamaican extradited to the U.S. that year on lottery scam charges.

Three years, then supervision

Chief U.S. District Judge Sherri A. Lydon sentenced Gentles to 36 months in prison, followed by three years of court-ordered supervision. There is no parole in the federal system.

Some questions remain open. The prosecutors’ announcement does not say whether Gentles pleaded guilty or was convicted at trial, or how much of the restitution has been paid. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Hummel prosecuted the case.

The red flag: paying to get a prize

That request to pay first is the warning sign the Federal Trade Commission highlights. “Real prizes are free,” the FTC says in its guidance on prize scams. It tells people not to pay a fee for “taxes,” processing or shipping to receive a prize.

Real winnings can still be taxed. But a legitimate prize should not depend on sending money to the person who says you won.

Anyone who has been targeted can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Older adults and their families can also call the Justice Department’s National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311), Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time, according to the Office for Victims of Crime.

A Milwaukee man who shot and killed a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier on his route in 2022, because he and another man believed the carrier had stolen their drug package, has been sentenced to 38 years in federal prison.

Chief U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper sentenced Kevin McCaa, 40, on Oct. 14, 2026, and ordered five years of supervised release after his prison term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin said. McCaa pleaded guilty on July 8, 2026, to the murder of a U.S. postal employee and to firing a gun during a crime of violence.

What happened on Dec. 9, 2022

Aundre Cross, 44, had worked for the Postal Service for 18 years, Oxygen reported when the charges were filed in 2022. On the afternoon of Dec. 9, 2022, he was delivering mail in Milwaukee when he was shot in the head and killed.

McCaa and Charles Ducksworth Jr. watched Cross for more than 30 minutes before the shooting and targeted him because they thought he had stolen their drug package, prosecutors said. Afterward, the two threw the gun into a nearby creek, changed their phone numbers and got rid of their clothes.

How they were caught

Investigators used warrants for phone records, automated license plate readers and surveillance video from homes and businesses around the scene to track the two men before and after the killing, according to the office. McCaa and Ducksworth were arrested on Dec. 27, 2022, and have been in federal custody since.

At the hearing, Pepper credited that “old-fashioned” investigative work. She found the killing was “premeditated, planned beforehand, with malice aforethought” and called it “incomprehensible,” the office said.

“This was a cold-blooded, senseless murder of a beloved member of his family and the community he served,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad D. Schimel said.

Remembered by fellow carriers

When McCaa pleaded guilty in July 2026, Rudy Polk, who worked as a letter carrier for two decades, told CBS 58 that Cross had a wife and three children. “Aundre is gone but not forgotten,” Polk said.

What happens next

Ducksworth pleaded guilty to the same crimes and is scheduled to be sentenced by Pepper on Nov. 18, 2026. A third person was charged in 2022 with lying to investigators about the killing. The sentencing announcement does not mention that case.

The Milwaukee Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI investigated, with help from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office and the Wauwatosa Police Department.

Two Georgia prison inmates who used smuggled cellphones to pose as police officers and tell people they would be arrested for missing jury duty have been sentenced to a combined 26 years and 8 months in federal prison.

The scheme took more than $464,920 from at least 119 victims across the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia said on Oct. 16, 2026. Prosecutors say the true number of victims is likely much higher, because many people never report this kind of scam.

The sentences

Senior U.S. District Judge W. Louis Sands sentenced Lance Riddle, known as “C-Port,” to 200 months in prison and Joey Amour Jackson to 120 months at hearings in Albany on Oct. 14, 2026. Both terms run after any state sentence they are serving. The court will decide restitution, the money they must repay victims, in 90 days.

A jury convicted both men of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering on Jan. 9, 2026, after a five-day trial. Both were held at Calhoun State Prison, according to the office.

How the calls worked

The FBI in Columbus, Georgia, began investigating after police in Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, California, Ohio and other places reported the calls, according to prosecutors. Agents found that inmates at Calhoun, including Riddle and Jackson, were using contraband phones and internet calling to make their calls show up on caller ID as the victim’s local police department.

The callers said the victim had one or more warrants for missing jury duty and would be arrested immediately unless they paid a bond over the phone. They also told victims they were under a “gag” order and could not talk about the warrant until it was paid. Victims were almost always told to buy gift cards and read the numbers off the back, though some sent wire transfers.

Sometimes the callers used the names of real officers from the victim’s own town, prosecutors said. The scheme mostly targeted women in professional jobs with a strong online presence.

Some victims were then told to go to a Target store and record themselves undressing in a restroom for a supposed security check before going to the police station. Some later received sexually explicit messages and violent threats, according to the office. People outside the prison managed the group’s accounts, and the money went to car and house loans, other debts and drugs, prosecutors said.

How to spot the scam

Federal courts say they send jury summonses by U.S. mail and never demand payment or personal information over the phone. A fine for missing jury service can be imposed only after a court appearance where the person can explain, according to guidance from the federal judiciary, which also warns that scammers can make their numbers look like court or police numbers.

Anyone who gets a call like this should not give out any information, and should report it to the clerk’s office of their local federal district court and to local police, the guidance says.

Related: a man accused of posing as a 49ers player in a romance and investment scam.

A St. Louis County man has admitted taking at least 14 properties that belonged to other people by filing forged deeds that made it look as if the owners had sold them to him or his relatives.

James L. Townes Jr., 51, of Berkeley, Missouri, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in federal court in St. Louis on Oct. 15, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said. The charge carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

How the scheme worked

A deed is the document that transfers ownership of a property, and it is filed with the local recorder of deeds. Townes admitted that starting as early as Sept. 25, 2018, he filed deeds in St. Louis and St. Louis County claiming that he or his relatives had bought properties that belonged to others.

To get the deeds accepted, Townes and a co-defendant, Charnay Bartlett, used notary seals they had obtained fraudulently to “authenticate” forged signatures of the real owners, prosecutors said. The two transferred at least 14 properties to Townes, his companies, or his friends and family, his plea agreement says.

Townes admitted the scheme used the names of 10 or more people and that the intended losses were more than $1.5 million. At least three of the owners whose signatures were “authenticated” were already dead, according to the office. In some cases, Townes forced his way through locked doors and squatted in the properties.

What it cost the owners

Some of the real owners had to spend considerable resources to get their titles back, prosecutors said. Others gave up their properties because they could not afford to take legal action.

The charges he faced

Townes was first charged in June 2025. In August 2025, a superseding indictment charged him with 25 counts, accusing him and Bartlett of using deeds to transfer, or try to transfer, 16 homes and a duplex between September 2018 and April 2025. That indictment also said Townes kept making transfers after his own notary license was suspended. His plea agreement covers at least 14 properties.

In July 2025, a magistrate judge ordered him held in custody while the case was pending, court records show.

In a separate indictment filed in August 2025, prosecutors accused Townes of falsely claiming to be disabled from February 2017 to August 2025. He said he could not walk more than five or 10 steps or do household chores, the indictment says, while he ran a company called Tied Tight Entertainment, acted as the registered agent of 13 other LLCs, became a notary and filed property deeds. The announcement of his plea does not say what happened to that case.

What happens next

Bartlett, 30, pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge in April 2026 and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2, 2026. Townes is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 21, 2027.

The case was investigated by the inspectors general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration, the St. Louis County Police Department and the Hazelwood Police Department.

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and 30-year sentence of a former soldier for the 2001 killing of Army Pfc. Amanda Gonzales, who was 19 and about five months pregnant when she was beaten and strangled in her barracks room in Germany.

Shannon L. Wilkerson, 46, was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury in Pensacola, Florida, in May 2024, more than 22 years after Gonzales died. In an unsigned opinion filed on Sept. 30, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected every argument in his appeal. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida announced the ruling on Oct. 16, 2026.

What happened in 2001

Wilkerson and Gonzales were both stationed at Fliegerhorst Kaserne, then a U.S. Army base in Hanau, and lived in barracks buildings about 500 feet apart, according to the opinion, which summarizes the trial testimony. Gonzales was found dead on the floor of her room on Nov. 5, 2001. Prosecutors say she was killed on Nov. 3, 2001. There was no sign of forced entry, and the medical examiner found she had been strangled with something wide, such as a forearm.

Wilkerson, who was married to another soldier on the base, had been having an affair with Gonzales. According to the testimony, his wife threatened to leave him if the baby was his, and Gonzales threatened to tell their command about the affair. Adultery is a crime under military law, and the punishment could include demotion or being forced out of the Army. One soldier testified that Wilkerson said, “I promise you I’ll kill her if she goes to the command.” Wilkerson denied saying it.

On the night of the killing, guards at the front gate stopped Wilkerson from leaving the base because he was too drunk, according to the testimony. Around 3 a.m., he showed up in another soldier’s room carrying a borrowed gray sweatshirt and asked the soldiers there to say he had been drinking with them all night.

The DNA evidence

In 2022, the Army’s crime lab retested that sweatshirt with newer DNA software. Its analyst testified that a DNA mixture from the inside of the right forearm came from three people: the sweatshirt’s owner, Wilkerson and Gonzales.

Wilkerson’s experts disputed that. One found only “limited support” that Gonzales’s DNA was in the mixture, and another said the analyst should have called the three people “possible contributors.” Wilkerson testified that he was “positive” he did not kill her, even though he was very drunk that night.

What the appeals court rejected

Wilkerson argued that the trial judge should have let the jury hear about Chinu Kim, a soldier who lived next door to Gonzales and later killed a mechanic and the mechanic’s son in 2006. The judge kept that evidence out, and the appeals court found no error. The opinion notes that Kim and Gonzales were only acquaintances and that Kim, when questioned, denied any role in her death.

The panel also upheld the trial judge’s refusal to order more raw data from the Army lab, which the judge had called a “fishing expedition,” and the denial of a new trial.

It upheld the sentence too. The guidelines from 2001 suggested 210 to 262 months, but the trial judge imposed 360 months, calling the old range “too lenient” because it did not account for the unborn child, the victim being a fellow service member, or the way she died. The judge also found that Wilkerson lied when he testified that he did not kill her, which added to his guideline range.

How the case was brought

Wilkerson was later discharged from the Army. He was arrested in Florida in February 2023 on a first-degree murder charge, CBS News reported, and the jury convicted him of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. The FBI’s New York and Jacksonville field offices investigated, with help from the Army Criminal Investigative Division.

“Nothing can bring back the innocent lives taken by this defendant’s heinous crime,” U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin said in announcing the ruling.

Related: how a discarded water bottle led to a murder charge in a 1985 Newport killing.

A St. Petersburg man who went to federal prison over five Texas bank robberies committed in an “old man” mask has been charged with robbing two Florida banks in the same kind of disguise, just over a year after he was released.

David Sartin Jr., 40, faces two counts of bank robbery, each carrying up to 20 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said on Oct. 16, 2026. The charges were filed in a criminal complaint in Tampa two days earlier.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Two robberies, three weeks apart

The first robbery was at a Valley Bank branch on East Bay Drive in Largo on Aug. 24, 2026, according to an FBI agent’s sworn affidavit filed with the complaint. A man in a straw hat, a sports jacket, gloves and a prosthetic face covering walked up to a teller and demanded all the money, adding “no dye packs.” He left with $2,900, wedging a yellow wet-floor sign between the doors on his way out, and rode off on a bicycle, the affidavit says.

The second was at a Truist Bank on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg on Sept. 15, 2026. This time the robber wore a flat cap, dark-framed glasses and an old man mask with a grey mustache and whiskers. He passed the teller a note that said something like “Cash, no dye,” according to the affidavit, and left with about $2,554.

How investigators say they found him

Investigators followed the getaway vehicle. Shortly before the Largo robbery, prosecutors say, Sartin arrived at a nearby gas station in a black 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser, drove around the area, parked and switched to the bicycle. License plate cameras captured an SUV that appears to be the same one, the affidavit says.

The vehicle had once been registered to Sartin and was later put in his father’s name, the agent wrote. A speeding ticket issued in Nassau County, Florida, on July 26, 2026, listed Sartin as the driver. His probation officer told the FBI he often stayed at a home in St. Petersburg, and cameras caught the SUV turning onto that street, seven houses away, after the first robbery.

Surveillance of that home showed the SUV leaving before the second robbery and coming back after it, prosecutors said, and a man resembling Sartin unloading a bicycle. The next day, investigators watched him spray-paint the SUV’s white roof black.

What the searches turned up

Sartin was arrested on Sept. 19, 2026, on a separate warrant for violating his supervised release. That warrant said he had left the Middle District of Florida without permission and had been arrested for theft at a Walmart in Lake City, South Carolina, on Sept. 1, 2026.

In a storage unit, agents found an old man mask with grey facial hair, dark-framed glasses, work gloves with black paint on them, a fake handgun and clothing matching the second robbery, according to prosecutors. At another home where he sometimes stayed, they found a journal dated “Jan 1, 2021” with the title “God’s Best friend is a Bank Robber!”

The same disguise before

Sartin’s record goes back to 2006, according to the affidavit. That year, he and two others tried to rob a bank in Stonewall, Mississippi, and he wore a Halloween mask. They left with no money. He pleaded guilty to attempted bank robbery in 2008 and was sentenced to 38 months.

In 2016, the FBI in San Antonio arrested him for five bank robberies in Texas in which he wore an “old man” mask. He was sentenced in February 2018 to 121 months in federal prison and began supervised release on May 16, 2025. Prosecutors say he used the same SUV in those robberies.

What happens next

A criminal complaint is the first step in a federal case. Felony charges then go to a grand jury for an indictment unless the defendant waives it. Assistant U.S. Attorney Belkis H. Callaos is prosecuting the case, which the FBI and the Largo and St. Petersburg police departments investigated.

Related: three people charged in Tampa over more than $2 million in Treasury checks taken from the mail.

A civilian construction contractor at Naval Base Ventura County has been charged with using his base pass to get into restricted areas at Point Mugu, photographing and filming military equipment, aircraft and training exercises, and sending some of the images to other people.

Todd Jeremy Senff, 46, of Camarillo, California, faces 14 misdemeanor counts: 11 counts of violating a defense property security regulation and three counts of entering military property for an unlawful purpose, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in federal court in downtown Los Angeles.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

What prosecutors say he did

Senff worked for a Navy construction services contractor. The base awarded his employer a three-year construction contract in September 2023, and Senff worked on about four of its projects, according to the office. That work came with a credential giving him access to parts of the base.

From June to September 2024, prosecutors say, he used that access to take photos and videos of sensitive military equipment and exercises. He then sent some of them to associates “along with messages regarding military activities,” the office said. The release does not say who those associates were, and he is not charged with espionage.

The Navy strictly limits photography on its bases, and Point Mugu had posted signs saying photography was prohibited, according to prosecutors.

Why Point Mugu matters

Naval Base Ventura County has about 19,000 personnel across three installations. Point Mugu houses naval weapons testing commands and facilities for weapons research, development and evaluation, the office said. It also gives direct access to the Point Mugu Sea Range, the Navy’s largest instrumented sea range, used for air, surface and submarine operations, missile defense support and multinational exercises.

What the court records show

Prosecutors charged Senff by information, a charging document filed without a grand jury that is allowed for misdemeanors, on Oct. 6, 2026, the docket shows. The case is United States v. Senff, No. 2:26-cr-00614.

The paper trail starts earlier. A federal citation was issued to Senff on Dec. 13, 2024, in a separate petty-offense file, No. 2:24-po-01371. That file was closed on Jan. 23, 2025. On Oct. 5, 2026, the day before the information was filed, it was merged into the new criminal case, according to the court records. The docket does not say what the 2024 citation was for.

Possible penalties

Each count of violating a defense property security regulation carries up to one year in federal prison. Each count of entering military property for an unlawful purpose carries up to six months.

The FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are investigating. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph S. Guzman of the office’s National Security Division is prosecuting the case.

The man prosecutors say pretended to be a San Francisco 49ers player to win women’s trust, and their money, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Portland and will face a jury in December.

Daejon Labrayae Delenar Love, 35, of Sacramento County, California, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, and was ordered held as a flight risk and a danger, court records show. A 10-day jury trial is set to begin Dec. 15, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut.

The case drew wide attention in August, when Love and a second man were arrested in Boise, Idaho. The indictment, returned on Oct. 8, 2026, takes the place of the criminal complaint filed then, and it adds details that were not public in August.

Five aliases

The indictment lists Love as also known as “Jon Love,” “Jordan Love,” “Avril Lyto Love,” “Brii’jon Love” and “Prince Love.” It says he “frequently used aliases” when he talked with women online.

According to the grand jury, Love and a partner it calls “co-conspirator 1” built dating and social media profiles that showed Love as a wealthy real estate investor or a current or former NFL player. They pitched fake high-yield investments, including what they called an “expedited account” that could supposedly double or triple an investment quickly.

Co-conspirator 1 posed as Love’s financial adviser and showed victims bank and investment statements that were fabricated, the indictment says. It adds that co-conspirator 1 “had no experience as a financial advisor.” Love traveled to meet women in person and brought “props and symbols of apparent wealth,” including high-end cars, jewelry and NFL gear, the indictment alleges.

Where the money went

Instead of investing the money, the indictment alleges, Love and his partner spent it on:

• travel, hotels in several cities, and dining
• NFL-related gear and clothing
• high-end vehicle leases and jewelry
• payments to online dating platforms
• payments for followers on social media
• child support payments
• adult entertainment

The indictment does not give a dollar total. In August, prosecutors said financial records showed the pair received about $1.3 million from 26 identified victims in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California, starting in February 2022, NBC Bay Area reported. The FBI said there could be more.

What changed since August

The case began with a sealed criminal complaint signed on Aug. 17, 2026, naming Love and Taylor Jamie Chan, then 18. It was unsealed on Aug. 24, 2026, the docket shows. In August, prosecutors said Chan posed as Love’s investment adviser, and that the two were arrested when Chan flew from California to meet Love in Boise.

The indictment is narrower. It charges Love alone, with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The August complaint had charged both men with conspiracy and wire fraud. The indictment does not name co-conspirator 1, and the court records Max Crime reviewed for Love’s case do not show the status of Chan’s case.

Records from Love’s first court appearance in Idaho reached the Oregon court on Sept. 1, 2026. The court appointed lawyer Ellie Riegel to represent him. On Oct. 15, 2026, prosecutors filed an unopposed request for a protective order, which limits how evidence shared with the defense can be used, and the court ruled on it the same day.

If convicted, Love faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, and would have to forfeit property bought with money from the scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Chinwuba and Christopher Cardani are prosecuting the case. The FBI is investigating.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

The FBI has asked anyone with information to submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.

A Las Vegas man who shot up and firebombed cars at a Tesla repair shop in March 2025 was sentenced on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, to five years in federal prison. Prosecutors had asked for 20.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey sentenced Paul Hyon Kim to 60 months, followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada said. The government had recommended 240 months.

Five years was the lowest sentence the law allowed. The gap between the two numbers came down to one question argued in the court file: whether the attack counts as a federal crime of terrorism.

What happened at the shop

In the early morning of March 18, 2025, Kim shot out two security cameras at the Tesla Collision Center Las Vegas with an AR-style rifle, according to prosecutors. He spray-painted “RESIST” in large letters across the double entrance doors and fired several shots into Tesla vehicles parked out front.

He then threw three Molotov cocktails into three vehicles. Two exploded into flames and the third did not go off. Five vehicles were destroyed beyond repair. Kim ran to his car and drove away, the office said. No one was hurt.

Kim was arrested on March 26, 2025, and has been held since, according to his lawyers. In February 2026, he pleaded guilty to all four counts, two counts of arson, one of attempted arson and one of possessing an unregistered destructive device, without a plea deal.

The fight over the word “terrorism”

When the Justice Department announced Kim’s arrest in March 2025, it called the Tesla attacks around the country a “wave of domestic terrorism.” At sentencing, prosecutors asked Judge Dorsey to apply the federal terrorism adjustment, which would have added 12 levels to Kim’s guideline score and treated him as though he had the worst possible criminal record, even though he had none.

That would have moved his recommended range from 60 to 71 months up to 210 to 262 months, according to a 44-page sentencing memorandum Kim’s lawyers, Michael L. Becker and Adam M. Solinger, filed on Oct. 6, 2026.

The U.S. Probation Office, which prepares the report judges use at sentencing, looked at the same evidence and decided the adjustment did not apply, the memo says. Kim’s lawyers made three main arguments:

• The law covers attacks on government, not on private targets. The adjustment requires a crime “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” The cars belonged to private owners and the shop was a private business.
• There was no message to the government. Kim made no demands, claimed no responsibility, and did not name any official, agency or policy, the lawyers wrote.
• His searches were about copying others and avoiding capture. Prosecutors said his internet searches “set out his political motivation.” The defense said that of more than 30 searches listed in the probation report, none mentioned a government policy, DOGE or Elon Musk. Many were about earlier Tesla attacks, and the largest group was about avoiding detection, such as surveillance cameras and cellphone tracking.

The lawyers also pointed to the only other Tesla-related arson sentencing they could find: an Arizona case, United States v. Moses, in which a man who used gasoline and fire-starter logs against a Tesla dealership and destroyed a Cybertruck received the same five-year minimum in January 2026.

Where the sentence landed

Judge Dorsey’s 60-month sentence matches what the probation office and the defense recommended without the terrorism adjustment. Her written judgment explaining the decision had not been posted to the public docket when Max Crime reviewed it on Oct. 15, 2026.

“There is no place for violence as a means of resolving political differences in our democracy,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah said in announcing the sentence.

The judge also signed a final forfeiture order on Oct. 14, 2026, and approved agreements to release the five vehicles to their owners and to return Kim’s electronic devices to him, the docket shows. Kim does not dispute that he owes restitution, according to his lawyers. The amount is up to the court.

The FBI, the ATF and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department investigated, with help from the Clark County Fire Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jake Operskalski and Dan Cowhig prosecuted the case.

A former member of the California National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, to two years and five months in federal prison for possessing a machine gun and an unregistered short-barreled rifle, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California said.

U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins sentenced Ruby Celly Uribe, 37, of Sacramento. A jury found her guilty on May 26, 2026. Her sentencing had been set for Sept. 11, 2026, and was moved to Oct. 9, 2026, at her request, the court docket shows.

How the guns came to light

According to court documents and trial evidence described by prosecutors, Uribe worked in the logistics shop at California National Guard headquarters in Mather and was a member of the Counterdrug Task Force, which supports local, tribal and federal agencies against drug trafficking organizations.

Prosecutors say she leaked information about upcoming drug raids, including dates, locations and the number of military vehicles and aircraft involved, to a person she knew was involved in drug dealing. Text messages on her phone and the dealer’s phone showed the leaks, according to the office. She was not charged with leaking the information.

A federal search of her home turned up a short-barreled rifle with no serial number, a so-called ghost gun, that had been modified to fire fully automatically, prosecutors said. A search of her phone showed she was also trafficking other unserialized, short-barreled machine guns, including to a co-worker on July 20, 2022, according to the office. While preparing for trial, the FBI learned of and recovered another machine gun she had sold in August 2022.

The Second Amendment challenge

Before trial, Uribe asked the court to throw out both counts, arguing that the laws violated the Second Amendment as applied to her under the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Judge Coggins rejected the machine gun challenge from the bench at a March 13, 2026, hearing and the short-barreled rifle challenge in a seven-page written order on April 6, 2026.

In that order, the judge agreed that Uribe, who had no criminal history, was among “the people” the Second Amendment protects. But she found Uribe had not shown that short-barreled rifles are “in common use” for self-defense.

Uribe’s lawyer pointed to a federal count of 532,725 registered short-barreled rifles in the United States in 2021. The government answered that there were an estimated 393 million civilian-held firearms in the country as of 2018, so registered short-barreled rifles were likely less than 1% of all firearms. The judge sided with the government and with what she called “the overwhelming weight of judicial authority” holding that such weapons are not protected.

The charges

The indictment, returned on Feb. 1, 2024, charged one count of unlawful possession of a machine gun and one count of possessing a short-barreled rifle not registered to her in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, on or about Dec. 13, 2022. Federal law generally bans possession of machine guns and of unregistered rifles with barrels shorter than 16 inches.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated, with help from the California Military Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adrian T. Kinsella and Nicole M. Vanek prosecuted the case.

A 34-year-old Moroccan man found hiding beneath a cargo crane aboard a ship bound for Louisiana has been indicted in New Orleans on a federal charge of being a stowaway, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said.

A federal grand jury indicted El Mahdi Koutabi on Oct. 2, 2026, on one count under 18 U.S.C. § 2199, the federal stowaway law. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and up to three years of supervised release.

The voyage, from the complaint

The details of how he was found are in the criminal complaint filed in federal court on Sept. 29, 2026, and sworn to by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement officer at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. According to the officer’s affidavit:

• On Sept. 10, 2026, the motor vessel Unity Moon left Jorf Lasfar, Morocco, bound for Gramercy, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River.
• On Sept. 21, 2026, crew members found Koutabi hiding beneath cargo crane No. 4. CBP in New Orleans was told the same day.
• On Sept. 27, 2026, the ship arrived at the Boothville Anchorage near Venice, Louisiana, and Koutabi was taken to the CBP office at the New Orleans airport to be processed for return to Morocco.

After he was told his rights and interviewed through an interpreter, Koutabi admitted hiding aboard without the consent of the ship’s owner, consignee or master in order to get transportation from Morocco, the officer wrote. He also said it was his fourth time getting transportation aboard a ship without consent or authorization, according to the affidavit. The complaint does not say where or when the earlier trips took place.

The charge

The indictment says that on Sept. 27, 2026, Koutabi entered U.S. jurisdiction aboard a vessel after boarding and hiding himself on it without the consent of its owner, charterer, master or person in command, with the intent of obtaining transportation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The case began as a complaint, case No. 2:26-mj-00121, and is now proceeding on the indictment as case No. 2:26-cr-00232.

CBP officers investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine M. Calogero is prosecuting it. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the case is part of Operation Take Back America, a Justice Department immigration and cartel enforcement initiative.

Koutabi is presumed innocent. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The last two defendants in the federal kickback case involving Evanston/Skokie School District 65 pleaded guilty on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, admitting that they paid cash to the district’s former superintendent in exchange for contracts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said.

With those pleas, all four people charged in the case have now admitted guilt. A three-week jury trial had been scheduled to begin on Oct. 21, 2026, according to the federal docket.

What the two vendors admitted

Antonio Ross, 49, and Alfonzo Lewis, 49, both of Chicago, each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. In their plea agreements, they admitted paying kickbacks to then-Superintendent Devon Horton in return for his efforts to steer district contracts to consulting companies they owned, prosecutors said.

• Antonio Ross: His company was paid about $119,500 by District 65, and he paid Horton at least $41,900 in cash from the contract money.
• Alfonzo Lewis: His company was paid about $24,000, and he paid Horton at least $6,000 in cash.

Both admitted that their companies did not perform some of the services they billed the district for, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The superintendent and the third vendor

Horton, 49, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, pleaded guilty earlier in October 2026 to wire fraud, embezzlement and tax charges, prosecutors said. He admitted taking the kickbacks from Antonio Ross and Lewis, plus another $30,000 from a third vendor, Samuel Ross, whose company was paid $124,500 by District 65 for what was described as loss prevention services.

Samuel Ross, 47, of Berwyn, Illinois, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in September 2026.

After leaving District 65, Horton became superintendent of the DeKalb County School District in Georgia, and he was placed on leave there after the October 2025 indictment, FOX 5 Atlanta and Atlanta News First reported.

Sentencing dates

• Devon Horton: Jan. 5, 2027
• Alfonzo Lewis: Jan. 25, 2027
• Antonio Ross: March 10, 2027
• Samuel Ross: not yet scheduled

All four will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin. Wire fraud carries up to 20 years in federal prison. The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation, with help from the Chicago Public Schools Office of Inspector General.

A 71-year-old Brockton, Massachusetts, woman who tried to deposit a stolen U.S. Treasury tax refund check for $931,745.28 has been sentenced to two months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs sentenced Lana Ruel on Oct. 5, 2026, to two months in prison followed by two months of supervised release. Ruel may also be ordered to pay restitution later. She pleaded guilty on June 11, 2026, to one count of theft of government funds, a charge that carries up to 10 years in prison, according to the office’s announcement of her plea.

A COVID-era tax credit check

The check was a refund owed to a home health care company in Brooklyn, New York, under the Employee Retention Credit, a tax credit for some businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the sworn affidavit an IRS Criminal Investigation special agent filed when Ruel was charged in December 2025. The affidavit is part of the public court file.

The company’s owner told the agent it expected six refund checks and received five. The missing one was the check Ruel deposited, according to the affidavit. He said his company works only in New York and that he did not know Ruel.

What the court record shows

According to the affidavit:

• On or about March 25, 2025, Ruel used the Brooklyn company’s name to incorporate a business in Massachusetts, listing herself as its president, treasurer, secretary and director.
• On or about April 11, 2025, she opened a business account at M&T Bank in that name, and over the next six weeks deposited about $2,200. Her largest purchase in that period was about $39 at a grocery store.
• On or about May 23, 2025, she deposited the Treasury check, which was made out to the real company at its Brooklyn address.
• On May 27, 2025, the bank rejected the deposit and took back the full amount. The same day, Ruel called the bank on a recorded line and said she could “explain what the check was, where it came from, and what it’s for.”

When the agent interviewed her in September 2025, Ruel said she had started the company to offer home care consulting and that the check had been mailed to her by a man she met on an online dating site almost two years earlier, according to the affidavit. The agent wrote that there was probable cause to believe she lied in that interview and that she intended to send the money to that man.

The agent also wrote that over two years Ruel had created four other Massachusetts companies that did not appear to have a legitimate business purpose, and for one of them opened accounts at about eight banks. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, in announcing her sentence, put that number at about 10. In both accounts, money was wired in and then wired out or withdrawn in cash, and the banks closed the accounts.

The case in court

Ruel was arrested on Dec. 10, 2025, and a federal public defender was appointed to represent her, the docket shows. In January 2026 the court scheduled a hearing in proceedings to revoke her release; the docket entries available do not show the outcome.

IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Saltzman.

Three people have been arrested and charged in a federal indictment in Tampa with trying to steal more than $2 million in U.S. Treasury checks that were taken from the mail before they reached the people they were meant for, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026.

The defendants are Stanley Richardson Joseph, 28, and Kallie Nicole Valerie Halliday, 26, both of Brooklyn, New York, and Kristy Marie Bochecchio, 47, of Tampa. Each is charged with conspiracy, theft of government money or property, and aggravated identity theft.

How prosecutors say the scheme worked

According to the indictment, as described by prosecutors:

• The three intercepted Treasury checks that had been put in the mail for delivery to the victims.
• Once they had a check, they made counterfeit driver’s licenses in the names of the people the check was made out to.
• They used the fake licenses to open new accounts at several financial institutions and deposited the stolen checks.

The announcement does not say how many checks were involved, where they were taken from the mail, how much money was actually withdrawn, or how the scheme was discovered, and the indictment was not released with it.

The penalties

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said each defendant faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts. Under federal law, aggravated identity theft also carries a mandatory two-year prison term that must be served in addition to the sentence for the underlying crime. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of any proceeds traceable to the offenses.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated, with help from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations in New York. Assistant U.S. Attorney Merrilyn Hoenemeyer is prosecuting the case.

If a Treasury check never arrives

Treasury checks include federal tax refunds. A taxpayer whose refund check was issued but never arrived, or was lost, can ask the IRS to trace it using Form 3911, Taxpayer Statement Regarding Refund, according to the IRS.

Joseph, Halliday and Bochecchio are presumed innocent. The allegations have not been proven in court.

A Louisville man who was serving a federal sentence for a carjacking during the 2020 protests in the city has been indicted on charges that he escaped from a halfway house in April 2026 and that he illegally possessed a gun.

A federal grand jury in Louisville returned the indictment against Damion Hayes, 26, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, charging him with escape from federal custody and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky said. The office spells his middle name Lamont; his earlier federal court records spell it Lemont.

What the indictment alleges

According to the indictment, Hayes escaped from federal custody on or about April 22, 2026, in Jefferson County. At the time he was confined at the Dismas Charity Center Residential Reentry Center, a halfway house, under the authority of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The gun count says he was barred from having a firearm because of earlier felony convictions. The announcement does not say when or where he is accused of having the gun, or when he was taken back into custody.

The new indictment is case No. 3:26-cr-00147 in federal court in Louisville.

The 2020 carjacking

Hayes was 21 when U.S. District Judge David J. Hale sentenced him on Feb. 4, 2021, to 91 months in prison for his role in a carjacking during protest activity in Louisville in 2020, according to the 2021 announcement of his sentence. He admitted taking a 2017 Subaru Forester by force, violence and intimidation on June 3, 2020, in Jefferson County, and was ordered to pay $20,117.81 in restitution.

The federal docket in that case shows the 91-month term was ordered to run at the same time as sentences in two Jefferson Circuit Court cases. One day after his federal sentencing, on Feb. 5, 2021, he was convicted in state court of facilitation to murder and facilitation to first-degree robbery in one case, and of possession of a handgun by a convicted felon in the other, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The docket also shows that in May 2024 the court entered an order reducing his sentence under Amendment 821 to the federal sentencing guidelines, a 2023 change that applied to some people already in prison. The public docket entry does not show the new length.

The penalties

If convicted on both counts, Hayes faces a combined maximum of 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. There is no parole in the federal system. The U.S. Marshals Service and the Louisville Metro Police Department investigated, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla M. Campbell is prosecuting the case.

Hayes is presumed innocent of the new charges. The allegations have not been proven in court.

A Chicago man has been indicted in federal court on a charge of aiming a laser pointer at a Chicago Police Department helicopter in August, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said.

Ignacin Ramos, 36, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026. The charge carries up to five years in federal prison.

What the indictment says

The one-page indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Chicago on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, says that on or about Aug. 11, 2026, Ramos “knowingly aimed the beam of a laser pointer at, and at the flight path of, an aircraft, namely, a Chicago Police Department helicopter, in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States.”

It charges him with one count under 18 U.S.C. § 39A(a), the federal law against aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft or its flight path. The indictment was filed under seal. Neither the indictment nor the announcement says where in Chicago the helicopter was or whether anyone aboard was hurt.

What the court record shows

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland, and an arrest warrant was issued the day of the indictment, according to the federal docket.

Ramos was arrested on the morning of Oct. 8, 2026, and appeared the same day before U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth W. Jantz, who granted the government’s request to unseal the case. The court found he could not afford a lawyer and appointed attorney Ryan Levitt to represent him. Judge Jantz released him on a $4,500 recognizance bond, which does not require him to post money unless he fails to appear.

Who investigated

The FBI investigated, with help from the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis Price Shugrue is prosecuting the case.

What happens next

A status hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 3, 2026, before Judge Rowland.

Ramos is presumed innocent. The allegations have not been proven in court.