New Zealand ISIS Supporter Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar' Before Stabbing Shoppers, Witnesses Say
With New Zealand subject to one of the world's strictest lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, very few shops were open on Sept. 3, 2021. The Countdown (now Woolworths) supermarket in Auckland's LynnMall was one of the few that was, and it was there that a known ISIS supporter, Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, carried out a knife attack.
The inquest into his death has opened this week, starting with testimony from witnesses inside the store. Most are sharing their version of events for the first time. Coroner Marcus Elliott has also viewed CCTV footage from the store.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Lewiston Party House defendant seeks dismissal
LOCKPORT — The man who previously pleaded guilty to charges of providing booze and pot to teenagers in a Mountain View Drive home that became known as the 'Lewiston Party House' is asking to have his case dismissed. Gary Sullo, 58, has appealed to Niagara County Court Judge John Ottaviano, asking to have the charges he has already admitted to — and been sentenced for — thrown out because he claims his constitutional rights to a speedy trial were denied. Lawyers for Sullo and Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman argued the appeal before Ottaviano on Wednesday. Defense attorney Jessica Kulpit told the judge that after Sullo was first charged in 2018 it took '4 years, 9 months and 8 days' to resolve his case. 'There is no universe I can think of where it takes 5 years to resolve a misdemeanor case,' Kulpit said. While admitting that proceedings in the case were impacted by restrictions imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kulpit insisted that 'the Town of Lewiston Court did nothing, without explanation, the court did nothing (to advance the case). This is a deprivation of constitutional rights.' Sullo was sentenced by Lewiston Town Justice Hugh Gee to three years probation for his guilty plea to misdemeanor charges for providing alcohol and marijuana to teenagers in the home he shared with his late wife Tricia Vacanti, who was also originally charged in the case. His sentencing came more than six years after the first reports of booze and drug-fueled teenage parties at the home. Sullo was charged with multiple counts of endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful dealing with a child but ultimately pleaded guilty to just two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in a deal with Niagara County prosecutors. At the time of that deal, Sullo had filed a motion in Lewiston court to have the case dismissed, arguing that his speedy trial rights had been violated. Before prosecutors could respond to that motion, and before Gee could issue a ruling on it, Sullo reportedly emailed the judge and said he wanted to take the DA's plea offer. Kulpit said that despite her client's decision to take the prosecutor's offer, the request to have the case dismissed should have been ruled on in the Lewiston court. She said Sullo always expected to get a ruling. 'He took the plea believing he could still appeal,' Kulpit said. Assistant Niagara County District Attorney Laura Jordon told Ottaviano that Sullo has no right to appeal. 'The case law is clear,' Jordan told the judge. 'A guilty plea precludes a (speedy trial) appeal.' Jordan also said all of the delays in the case, before Sullo's guilty plea, were a result of either Covid restrictions or requests from his defense attorney. 'Not a single delay was attributable to the people,' Jordan said. 'The record (in the case) shows all those delays, outside of Covid, were at the defendant's request.' Sullo's sentencing followed the sentencing of the other remaining adult in the case, Jessica Long. Long, 43, was sentenced by Gee in January 2024 to six months of interim probation for her guilty plea to one count of first-degree unlawfully dealing with a child. Vacanti had faced 41 counts of unlawfully dealing with a minor and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the house parties. But she died suddenly on July 3, 2022, and the charges against her were set aside. Specifically, Vacanti had been accused of providing booze and pot to at least three teenage girls, who later claimed they were sexually assaulted in her home by her then-teenage son, Christopher Belter. Belter was indicted, and pleaded guilty in June 2019, to felony charges of third-degree rape and attempted first-degree sexual abuse and two misdemeanor charges of second-degree sexual abuse for encounters with four teenage girls that occurred during the parties at the family's home in 2016 and 2018. In November 2021, Belter was sentenced to eight years of sex offender probation. A month later, he was classified as a Level 3 sex offender. Level 3 is the most serious classification and legally indicates a 'sexual predator.' Belter was also declared a sexually violent offender. Sullo and Vacanti were originally charged with 19 combined counts of unlawfully dealing with a minor and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the parties at their home from 2016 to 2018. In January 2020, Niagara County prosecutors leveled an additional 22 counts of endangering and unlawful dealing against Vacanti and another eight counts of the same allegations against Sullo. Long was charged with single counts of unlawfully dealing with a minor and endangering the welfare of a child. Sullo, who now resides in Florida, was not present in court for the hearing on his appeal.
San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Colleges, plagued by fraudulent ‘ghost students,' will soon have to ID aid applicants
With the growing success of criminal ghost students — bots posing as humans to steal millions of dollars in financial aid for fraudsters — California and federal regulators say they will start fighting back with an old-school technique: Making college students identify themselves. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that starting this fall, applicants for federal Pell Grants will have to show up in person or appear on a live video with an 'institutionally authorized individual' to provide 'unexpired, valid, government-issued photo identification.' The department cited California in particular, where fraudbots have siphoned off $10 million of Pell Grants and $3 million in state Cal Grant student aid since last year. California college officials voted last month to implement 'robust identity verification protocols' at their CCCapply application portal, where 2 million students a year — including many fraudbots — first enter the state's community college system. 'I think that's great,' said Kim Rich, a criminal justice instructor at L.A. Pierce College near Los Angeles. She has become an expert at identifying fraudbots and says she typically clears out three-quarters of the students — most of them bots — that enroll in her classes each term. Once they register, the bots can generate financial aid applications and disappear when the money arrives. Before any student applies to the system or enrolls in a class, Rich said, 'you verify their identity. Period. End of story. It's simple.' And yet, making sure each student is a student is anything but simple these days. That basic expectation became harder for college systems and the federal government to confirm after 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to an explosion of distance-learning classes, mainly at community colleges that are open to all. Remote classes and lax verification protocols have made it far easier for criminals to impersonate students than in prior years, and then to disappear when the financial aid checks land in the mailbox. Despite the new pronouncements about a return to individual identification for state and federal financial aid, neither the U.S. of Education nor the California Community College Chancellor's Office specified how that would be achieved. Implementation difficulties became apparent at the May 21 meeting of the California Community College Board of Governors, where members debated the fraud crisis for more than three hours, ultimately agreeing to generally upgrade the CCCApply technology to try to screen out more fraudulent applications, and to generally enhance applicant identification. Love Adu, a member of the Board of Governors and an incoming junior at UC Berkeley, noted that colleges often used the identity verification software 'ID Me,' but that it excludes many kinds of students, including those who are incarcerated, undocumented, homeless or under 18. The last category includes high school students who simultaneously enroll in community college through the increasingly popular practice of dual enrollment. 'I experienced this personally and had to drive more than five hours to a college to identify myself in person because I didn't qualify for ID Me,' Adu said at the meeting. 'I had the means to do that — but I know that most students do not.' Adu urged her colleagues on the board to consider that when they eventually do hash out the specifics of how to check whether students are human. The board spent most of the meeting debating whether the state chancellor's office should be given the authority to ask the state legislature for permission to impose an application of, say, $10, on applicants in order to help authenticate them. Although the board eventually gave them that authority, students and faculty who spoke at the meeting said a fee would probably discourage many low-income students from enrolling and might not serve its intended purpose in any case. Instead, most speakers said they would prefer to figure out how to verify real students. 'I think we can all agree that we can no longer minimize the effects of this problem. Something must be done,' Eleni Gastis, president-elect of the faculty senate at Laney College in Oakland, told the board members before imploring them to 'find other strategies to mitigate fraud before we ask our students to pony up.' She is among the instructors and staff members up and down the state who are forced to spend increasing amounts of time trying to identify and disenroll fake students before they can collect financial aid. Instructors report there are so many bots that there is often no room for real students. 'It takes faculty hours of time that they could be spending supporting our students,' state Chancellor Sonya Christian said at the meeting. 'It takes our classified staff hours of time to support students that they don't have.' Statewide, security software detected and thwarted fraud in 31.4% of applications this year, up from 20% in 2023, Chris Ferguson, head of finance at the state chancellor's office, 'We needed a plan yesterday,' Gastis told the Chronicle on Friday. And when a plan is created, she said, it will have to be made clear to students and be fair to 'marginalized and fearful communities.' Following Friday's announcement from the feds, even officials at the state chancellor's office said they weren't sure what to do next. The office is 'waiting for additional guidance,' a spokesperson for the chancellor's office told the Chronicle. Even then, it might be awhile before a plan is in place. Once guidance arrives, the spokesperson said, 'we will consult with our community college stakeholders to determine what processes and procedures will be needed to comply.'
New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
FBI Director Kash Patel announces potential ‘great breakthrough' in COVID origins probe
FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Friday that there was a recent 'breakthrough' in the COVID-19 origins probe after recovering the devices, including phones, that Dr. Anthony Fauci used in the earliest days of the pandemic. Fauci, one of the primary medical leaders during the deadly pandemic, is being investigated as part of the larger inquiry into how COVID started and America's response. Patel told podcaster Joe Rogan that the FBI originally couldn't locate any of the devices Fauci used during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 — but they apparently turned up just days ago. 4 FBI Director Kash Patel announced a 'breakthrough' in the government's COVID-19 origins probe on an episode of 'The Joe Rogan Experience' that aired Friday. The Joe Rogan Experience Advertisement 'They had always been looking for phones and devices he used while he was back in Trump one [the first Trump administration] during COVID, and nobody had found it until two days ago,' Patel said during an episode of 'The Joe Rogan Experience.' However, Patel cautioned that the content on the devices might be inconsequential — or even long gone. 'Everybody listening to us shouldn't jump to the conclusion [that] everything's in there. Maybe it's deleted, maybe it's not, but at least we found it, and at least now we can tell people that we have been looking because it is of public importance.' Advertisement Fauci has come under heavy fire since the pandemic for his flip-flopping policies on public safety, mainly by Republican stalwarts, including President Trump. The worst wave of the pandemic, stretching from March 2020 through the summer, came during the final months of Trump's first term in office. 4 Dr. Anthony Fauci was pardoned by former President Biden during the final hours of his presidency. Getty Images 4 Patel made the revelation on Joe Rogan's podcast Friday. The Joe Rogan Experience Advertisement Just hours before Trump was inaugurated in January, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci to protect him from being prosecuted as Trump and Republicans claimed the White House, House and Senate. The president has repeatedly condemned Biden's move, calling the pardon 'VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT' on TruthSocial in March. Fauci's pardon is still in effect. Advertisement 4 The FBI and CIA concluded that COVID likely originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China. EPA The FBI and the CIA both asserted that COVID likely came from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, which had been conducting different experiments on coronaviruses in the years preceding the disastrous pandemic. The lab leak theory was previously denounced as a conspiracy theory during the height of the pandemic. Fauci has been accused of suppressing information indicating the veracity of the lab leak, which he denied before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic last year.
