Latest news with #criminalconspiracy


Fox News
7 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Eric Adams hit with accusation of operating ‘criminal conspiracy' at NYPD
Mayor Eric Adams is being sued by a former high-ranking New York Police Department official for allegedly operating a "criminal conspiracy" at the department to enrich top officials. A spokesperson for Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, called the allegations "baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee." Politico reported that former interim NYPD commissioner Tom Donlon filed a suit in the New York state Supreme Court in Manhattan against Adams, the department and several other current and former city officials on Wednesday. In his suit, Donlon alleged that "a coordinated criminal conspiracy had taken root at the highest levels of City government — carried out through wire fraud, mail fraud, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and retaliation against whistleblowers." According to the outlet, Donlon's allegations against New York City officials amount to racketeering. Donlon stated that "this enterprise — the NYPD — was criminal at its core." Politico also reported that Donlon said in an accompanying statement that "this lawsuit is not a personal grievance; it is a statement against a corrupt system that betrays the public, silences truth, and punishes integrity." "The goal is to drive real change, hold the corrupt, deceitful, and abusively powerful accountable, and restore the voice of every honorable officer who has been silenced or denied justice," wrote Donlon. In response, Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for Adams, told Fox News Digital that "these are baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee who — when given the opportunity to lead the greatest police department in the world — proved himself to be ineffective." "This suit is nothing more than an attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayer's expense after Mr. Donlon was rightfully removed from the role of interim police commissioner," Mamelak Altus claimed. The spokesperson said Adams' office "will respond in court, where we are confident these absurd claims will be disproven." "The NYPD is led by the best, brightest, and most honorable professionals in the nation — and their results speak for themselves: crime continues to fall across the city, with shootings at the lowest level in recorded history," said Mamelak Altus. Adams is currently facing an uphill fight for re-election against Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, a self-professed democratic socialist, as well as former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican candidate and activist Curtis Sliwa.


Arab News
25-06-2025
- Business
- Arab News
French authorities raid SocGen offices for second day, source says
PARIS: French authorities searched Societe Generale's offices in Paris and Luxembourg for a second day, as part of a tax fraud investigation, a judicial source said on Wednesday. SocGen declined to comment. The raids are part of a preliminary investigation opened in 2024 into the French bank, led by the prosecution office, for 'tax fraud laundering,' 'organized or aggravated tax fraud laundering' and 'criminal conspiracy,' the same source said on Tuesday.


CBS News
03-06-2025
- General
- CBS News
Romanian man pleads guilty to swatting attacks on former U.S. president, lawmakers, churches
A Romanian man has pleaded guilty to leading an extensive plot to use swatting calls and bomb threats to intimidate dozens of people, including a former United States president and multiple members of Congress, authorities announced on Monday. The allegedly years-long scheme involved bogus police emergencies and false reports of violent incidents at government buildings, churches and private residences, including some senior government officials' homes, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. Thomasz Szabo, 26, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 23 by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the U.S. capital, after he was extradited from Romania in November 2024, court records show. "This defendant led a dangerous swatting criminal conspiracy, deliberately threatening dozens of government officials with violent hoaxes and targeting our nation's security infrastructure from behind a screen overseas," said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement. "This case reflects our continued focus on protecting the American people and working with international partners to stop these threats at their source." Szabo was charged with Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of making bomb threats. The two men targeted roughly 100 people with swatting calls to instigate an aggressive response by police officers at the victims' homes, a federal indictment alleges. A U.S. Secret Service agent's affidavit doesn't name the former U.S. president or any other officials identified as victims of the hoax calls. The two defendants are not explicitly charged in the indictment with threatening a former president, but one of the alleged victims is identified as a "former elected official from the executive branch" who was swatted on Jan. 9. 2024. Radovanovic falsely reported a killing and threatened to set off an explosion at that person's home, the indictment says. Szabo told Radovanovic that they should pick targets from both the Republican and Democratic parties because "we are not on any side," the indictment says. Charges against Radovanovic are still pending. Online court records indicate that he hasn't made any court appearances in Washington yet.

Al Arabiya
30-05-2025
- Business
- Al Arabiya
Twenty-five people hauled before French judge for crypto kidnapping attempt: Court
Twenty-five people will be brought before an investigating judge on Friday for attempting to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy crypto businessman and for criminal conspiracy, the Paris court said. Videos of the brazen kidnapping attempt, which took place in broad daylight on a Parisian street, were filmed and circulated on social media. They showed three masked men wrestling with two people while their getaway van idled nearby. It was the third violent attack targeting crypto players and their families in recent months.


New York Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Santos's Treasurer Avoids Prison for Her Role in His Schemes
George Santos's campaign treasurer and right-hand woman, Nancy Marks, was sentenced to probation on Wednesday for her role in the former congressman's campaign finance schemes after pleading guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy. Ms. Marks's admission was crucial in helping federal prosecutors build their case against Mr. Santos, who pleaded guilty last year and admitted to committing identity theft, filing false reports and stealing donors' money, among other crimes. He was sentenced last month to more than 7 years in prison. Appearing before Judge Joanna Seybert in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., Ms. Marks, 59, apologized for her role in Mr. Santos's schemes and vowed to have no further involvement in politics. The sentence, three years' probation and $178,000 in restitution, coupled with a heavily redacted sentencing memorandum and repeated delays in the sentencing, fueled speculation that Ms. Marks had cooperated with prosecutors. Asked whether Ms. Marks had done so, her lawyer, Raymond Perini, was coy. 'I'm going to leave that an enigma,' he said. Ms. Marks was once the go-to bookkeeper for some of Long Island's most prominent Republicans. Her business dealings had drawn federal prosecutors' interest, but it was her partnership with Mr. Santos, whose outrageous lies revealed serious misdeeds, that led to her downfall. In October 2023, five months after Mr. Santos was indicted, she pleaded guilty before prosecutors had filed an indictment against her. In their sentencing memo, the prosecutors asked for an 18-month prison sentence, the lowest end of the range recommended by the U.S. Probation Department. Standing before her family in court, Ms. Marks appeared nervous. She spoke of late-night phone calls with Mr. Santos, whom she described as both a friend and something like an abusive spouse. It was 'heartbreaking' to learn that his life story was a lie, she told the judge. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the sentencing for the longtime veteran of local, state and federal campaigns was her promise that she was done with politics. 'She's not a threat to the political world anymore,' Mr. Perini said. 'That's done.' As she delivered the sentence, Judge Seybert sought to impress upon Ms. Marks the seriousness of what she had done. 'This will be a lesson for people in local politics, that there will not be any more leniency for Nancy Marks,' Judge Seybert warned. 'This is it.' As Mr. Santos's treasurer, Ms. Marks was at the center of his political operation from his first unsuccessful run in 2020 through to his election to Congress in 2022. She oversaw the flow of funds in and out of the campaign, as well as reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. She was compensated handsomely, earning nearly $240,000, including reimbursements from Mr. Santos's campaign and associated political action committees. But shortly after Mr. Santos's election, The New York Times reported that he had fabricated nearly every part of his biography, prompting investigations by federal and local law enforcement authorities and an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee. That committee found that Mr. Santos had 'sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,' according to its report. The panel found that Mr. Santos had spent campaign funds at Hermès and Ferragamo, as well as the adult website OnlyFans. He was later expelled from Congress by a two-thirds vote of his colleagues. In pleading guilty, Ms. Marks admitted she had doctored reports to include fake donations from family members and friends and a fake $500,000 loan. The ruse had made the campaign look significantly more successful on paper than it was in reality. The reports were littered with irregularities, including constantly amended expenses, mysterious donations and dozens of payments addressed to 'Anonymous' in the precise amount of $199.99, just below the threshold at which receipts were required. Once a sought-after treasurer for Republican and Conservative Party candidates, the self-taught Ms. Marks built something of an empire from her converted garage in Shirley, N.Y. Amid a cloud of cigarette smoke, she handled the books of countless judges, political action committees and politicians. Her clients included Edward P. Romaine, the Suffolk County executive; the former State Senate majority leader, John Flanagan; and former Representative Lee Zeldin, who now leads the Environmental Protection Agency. Some of the financial irregularities that attracted prosecutors' interest to Mr. Santos also appear in reports she filed for other clients, most notably Mr. Zeldin's 2020 congressional campaign. In March 2023, Mr. Zeldin amended his reports, which had included a number of $199.99 payments to unnamed recipients. Her work for Mr. Santos was not the only instance of Ms. Marks drawing the attention of federal prosecutors, however. Her business practices attracted scrutiny on at least two occasions, once for brokering the sale of a ballot line, and once in response to complaints that she had stolen from clients. Neither inquiry resulted in charges. Some clients, including Mr. Zeldin, cut ties with Ms. Marks and her company, Campaigns Unlimited, after her role in Mr. Santos's schemes became public. Others stayed on. In the first few months of 2024, federal campaign filings show that Ms. Marks handled the books for a conservative television commentator running for Congress in Florida, and for a political action committee focused on electing people to school boards who oppose the teaching of racial history and gender identity. In court on Wednesday, Ms. Marks portrayed herself as a reformed woman. She said she was caring for her mother, had taken a night job at a warehouse and was going back to school. 'I have learned from my mistakes,' she said, 'and I am trying to start my life over again.'