Latest news with #Beacher
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Yahoo
Vandal who smashed up Rutgers Islamic center gets 6 months in prison
The New Jersey man who vandalized the Rutgers Islamic center last year was sentenced on Wednesday to six months in prison. Jacob Beacher, 25, was also fined $19,345 and will be placed under supervised release for one year after he gets released, reported the Central New Jersey Home News Tribune. Beacher, a North Plainfield resident, had been out on bail despite pleading guilty in October 2024 to the federal hate crime of destroying religious property. On April 10, 2024, the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, Beacher broke into the Center for Islamic Life on Rutgers' New Brunswick campus. No one was inside the building when Beacher entered around 3 a.m., but he damaged about $40,000 worth of property inside, according to authorities. Beacher targeted several religious artifacts and items that contained holy language from the Quran, cops said. Additionally, he stole a Palestinian flag and a charity box belonging to the center. 'Jacob Beacher admitted he intentionally broke into the Center for Islamic Life during the holy Eid-al-Fitr holiday and damaged and destroyed religious artifacts because of the Islamic faith of those associated with the facility,' then-New Jersey U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said when Beacher pleaded guilty. With News Wire Services
CBS News
03-04-2025
- CBS News
Man who pleaded guilty to Rutgers Islamic center vandalism sentenced to jail for 6 months
A New Jersey man has been sentenced to six months in jail for breaking into a Rutgers University Islamic center on the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr and vandalizing it. Jacob Beacher, of North Plainfield, will also have to serve a year of supervised release once he gets out under the terms of the sentence he received Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in October to the federal hate crime of damaging religious property. Beacher, who officials have said is unaffiliated with Rutgers, initially was charged in April 2024 with single counts of intentional or attempted obstruction of religious practice and making false statements to federal authorities. The charges stemmed from a break-in at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Beacher damaged property at the site, including several religious artifacts and numerous items that contained holy language from the Quran, Islam's sacred scripture, prosecutors have said. He also stole a Palestinian flag and a charity box belonging to the center, authorities said. The Islamic center was unoccupied when the break-in occurred on April 10, 2024 at around 2:40 a.m., according to prosecutors. The overall damage was estimated at $40,000. The next day, some Muslim students told CBS News New York they felt unsafe at Rutgers. While speaking with the FBI two days after the break-in, Beacher said he was the person seen near the center in surveillance video, but he denied breaking into the site. The incident came a few weeks after the state attorney general's office had reported a recent spike in bias incidents in New Jersey.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Man gets six months in jail for vandalizing an Islamic center at Rutgers University
A New Jersey man has been sentenced to six months in jail for breaking into a Rutgers University Islamic center on the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr and vandalizing it. Jacob Beacher, of North Plainfield, will also have to serve a year of supervised release once he gets out under the terms of the sentence he received Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in October to the federal hate crime of damaging religious property. Beacher initially was charged in April 2024 with single counts of intentional or attempted obstruction of religious practice and making false statements to federal authorities. The charges stemmed from a break-in at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Prosecutors have said Beacher damaged property at the site, including several religious artifacts and numerous other items that contained holy language from the Quran, Islam's sacred scripture. Authorities said Beacher also stole a Palestinian flag and a charity box belonging to the center. Beacher is not affiliated with Rutgers, officials have said. The site was unoccupied when the break-in occurred around 2:40 a.m., prosecutors said. The overall damage was estimated at $40,000. While speaking with the FBI two days after the break-in, Beacher said he was the person seen near the center in surveillance video, but he denied breaking into the site. The incident came a few weeks after the state attorney general's office had reported a recent spike in bias incidents in New Jersey.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jeff Bezos tops Donald Trump among richest Floridians. Here are Forbes' top 10 billionaires in the state
The Forbes 2025 list of all the billionaires in the world is out, and there are more than ever. Forbes found 3,028 businesspeople, investors and heirs worth more than one BILLION dollars, and this year the U.S. has a record 902, based on stock prices and exchange rates from March 7. That's 103 new Americans in the billionaires club, part of 247 worldwide since last year, with a combined wealth of $16.1 trillion and an average fortune of $5.3 billion. In comparison, the median net worth of American households (half are more, half are less) was $192,900 in 2022, the latest year the Federal Reserve has figures for. If you add up all the net worths of American households and divide by the number of them, the average in 2022 was $1,063,700. Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO and adviser to President Donald Trump is still comfortably on top of the heap with an estimated net worth of $383.4 billion as of April 2, despite recent losses from plunging Tesla stock. Meta head Mark Zuckerberg was listed at No. 2, although his current real-time net worth, $201.9 billion, is below Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos of Florida ($208.6 billion), who's on the list at No. 3. Rounding out the top five are Oracle CEO Larry Ellison ($181.6 billion), who recently bought a $277.4 million luxury resort near Palm Beach, and Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, and his family. For the first time, Forbes ranked rocker Bruce Springstein, who has ties to Palm Beach County's Wellington equestrian community; Hollywood star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ($1.1 billion); and comedian Jerry Seinfeld ($1.1 billion) to the of the world's billionaires. President Donald Trump made the list at No. 700 with an estimated current net worth in March of $5.1 billion, up from last year's $2.3 billion and currently down to $4.7 billion, and plenty of other Florida billionaires also saw huge gains as the rich got richer. Not all of them, though. Billionaires like warm weather. The Palm Beach area alone accounts for at least 67 of them. New to the list at No. 353 with a net worth of $8.5 billion is Palm Beach resident Michael Dorrell, cofounder and CEO of infrastructure investment firm Stonepeak. Here are the top 10 billionaires with close Florida ties in 2025. Each net worth listed is as of March 7. Net worth: $215 billion Age: 61 Source: Amazon Worth nearly as much as the next four people on the list combined, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought his third home in Billionaire Bunker, a man-made barrier island in Biscayne Bay near Miami Beach, last year. Bezos graduated from Palmetto High School in Miami and his company rocket and space tourism company Blue Origin has a facility in Cape Canaveral next to Kennedy Space Center and SpaceX. Net worth: $74.2 billion Age: 62 Source: Inherited stake in Koch, Inc Palm Beacher Julia Koch, 62, and her family inherited a 42% stake in Koch Inc, formerly Koch Industries, from her late husband, David Koch, who died in 2019. Koch is the third-richest woman in the world behind Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton ($101 billion) and French heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers ($81.6 billion), according to Forbes. Koch has been a winter resident of Palm Beach for years but put her $60 million Park Avenue apartment on the market in 2022, reportedly to spend more time at her houses here and in Southampton. Net worth: $57.3 billion Age: 80 Source: Discount brokerage Hungarian-born Peterffy arrived in the U.S. speaking no English, but he used his programming skills to pioneer electronic trading on Wall Street. Peterffy, a Palm Beach resident, founded the brokerage firm Interactive Brokers Group. Peterffy also saw massive gains in recent years, from a net worth of $20 billion in 2021 and $34 billion last year to nearly $60 billion in 2025. Net worth: $44.4 billion Age: 78 Source: Discount brokerage Schwarzman, Palm Beach resident and the son of a dry goods store owner, cofounded Blackstone Group in 1985 and saw it grow from a merger-and-acquisition advisory business into the world's largest buyout firm, with over $1 trillion in assets, according to Forbes. Net worth: $42.3 billion Age: 56 Source: Hedge funds Ken Griffin, the largest landowner in Palm Beach, is the founder of Miami-based investment and securities firm Citadel, with more than $63 billion in assets, according to Forbes. Griffin, who has deep Florida roots, moved Citadel and his family from Chicago to Miami in 2022. Like many others on the list, his net worth has soared in recent years, and Griffin's wealth has more than doubled since 2021 when it was an estimated $16 billion. Net worth: $32.7 billion Age: 63 Source: Stake in Fidelity Investments Investments/finance executive Abigail Johnson is the CEO of Fidelity Investments, which was formerly run by her father and founded in 1946 by her grandfather. She owns an estimated 28.5% stake of the firm, which Forbes says managed discretionary assets totaling $5.5 trillion as of June 2024. While Johnson lives on an estate in Massachussetts, has a home in (where else) Palm Beach. Net worth: $29.3 billion Age: 71 Source: Iron ore Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest citizen, rebuilt Hancock Prospecting, founded by her father, iron ore explorer Lang Hancock. She's also Australia's second-largest cattle producer, Forbes said. Her March net worth of nearly $30 billion is down slightly from last year's $30.8 billion. A few years ago, Rinehart and another family member were linked to two Palm Beach deals, one home for $66 million and another for $34.9 million. She has been spotted at nearby Mar-a-Lago, including on election night last year. Net worth: $27.8 billion Age: 63 Source: Quicken Loans Fellow Palm Beach resident Dan Gilbert cofounded what would become the largest mortgage lender in the U.S., Quicken Loans, when he was 22. He also owns the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers and co-founded the popular online sneaker sale platform StockX. Gilbert's wealth is up from last year's $26.2 billion but considerably down from a 2021 high of $51.9 billion. Net worth: $27 billion Age: 86 Source: Hedge funds Healthcare mogul Thomas Frist Jr., a former Air Force flight surgeon, founded Hospital Corp. of America (HCA) in 1968 with his father, Thomas Frist Sr. He owns more than 25% of the company, which owns and operates 186 hospitals and around 2,400 care facilities in the U.S. and the UK, with his family. Frist lives in Tennessee but in 2016, his son Thomas Frist III, an investment manager, and his wife, Julie, bought an $8 million Palm Beach home. Frist's wealth has risen quite a bit since 2020, when his net worth was valued at $7.5 billion. Net worth: $21.3 billion Age: 67 Source: Hedge funds "Arguably the greatest hedge fund manager of his generation," according to Forbes, Tepper founded Appaloosa Management in 1993. The $17 billion the company manages is mostly his own personal capital. He also owns the Carolina Panthers NFL team. In 2016, Tepper moved from New Jersey to Florida and brought his company with him. Tepper's net worth has risen steadily since 2020, when he was worth $13 billion. And he didn't make the top ten, but no list of Florida billionaires is complete without: Net worth: $13.4 billion Age: 74 Source: Auto parts Khan may be best known in Florida as the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he made his money as an auto parts tycoon. Khan is a Pakistani immigrant who arrived in the U.S. when he was 16 years old and washed dishes to work his way through college to become an engineer. He designed a one-piece truck bumper, and now his privately-owned company Flex-N-Gate has 76 plants worldwide and employs more than 27,000 people, according to Forbes. Khan, a Naples resident, also owns the UK's Fulham football club, the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto, and launched WWE competitor All Elite Wrestling with his son, Tony. Forbes said its estimates on net worth are a snapshot of wealth based on stock prices and exchange rates from March 7, 2025. "Some people become richer or poorer within days of publication," the company said. Forbes also values a variety of assets, including real estate, private companies, art and more, although "we don't pretend to know each billionaire's private balance sheet (although some provide it)." This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Forbes' 2025 billionaires list includes a lot of Floridians, here's the top 10
Associated Press
02-04-2025
- Associated Press
Man gets six months in jail for vandalizing an Islamic center at Rutgers University
A New Jersey man has been sentenced to six months in jail for breaking into a Rutgers University Islamic center on the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr and vandalizing it. Jacob Beacher, of North Plainfield, will also have to serve a year of supervised release once he gets out under the terms of the sentence he received Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in October to the federal hate crime of damaging religious property. Beacher initially was charged in April 2024 with single counts of intentional or attempted obstruction of religious practice and making false statements to federal authorities. The charges stemmed from a break-in at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Prosecutors have said Beacher damaged property at the site, including several religious artifacts and numerous other items that contained holy language from the Quran, Islam's sacred scripture. Authorities said Beacher also stole a Palestinian flag and a charity box belonging to the center. Beacher is not affiliated with Rutgers, officials have said. The site was unoccupied when the break-in occurred around 2:40 a.m., prosecutors said. The overall damage was estimated at $40,000. While speaking with the FBI two days after the break-in, Beacher said he was the person seen near the center in surveillance video, but he denied breaking into the site. The incident came a few weeks after the state attorney general's office had reported a recent spike in bias incidents in New Jersey.
