Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA funds and using a substantial portion of the dough to fund her 2022 campaign to join the House of Representatives. The Justice Department said Cherfilus-McCormick's family healthcare company received a $5 million overpay for a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. Rather than return the funds, the Democratic lawmaker routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source, according to the Justice Department's announcement. She conspired with multiple people, including her older brother, Edwin Cherfilus, to pull off the scam.
Major League Baseball said its authorized gaming operators will cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays, a day after two Cleveland Guardians were indicted and accused of rigging pitches at the behest of gamblers. MLB said Monday the limits were agreed to by sportsbook operators representing more than 98% of the U.S. betting market. The league said in a statement that pitch-level bets on outcomes of pitch velocity and of balls and strikes "present heightened integrity risks because they focus on one-off events that can be determined by a single player and can be inconsequential to the outcome of the game."
Turkish prosecutors have charged Istanbul's jailed mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu with 142 offences that could carry a penalty of hundreds of years in prison if he is convicted, court documents show. The nearly 4,000-page indictment charges the popular opposition figure, who was arrested on 19 March, with offences including running a criminal organisation, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, extortion and tender rigging.
Former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted on charges related to a gambling scheme, the latest in a string of betting scandals that have rocked sports. Two and a half weeks after indicting an NBA player and two coaches for their alleged roles in gambling schemes, the United States Attorney's Office out of the Eastern District of New York accused Clase and Ortiz of rigging individual pitches to benefit unnamed bettors.
The first incident occurred in July 1995, when authorities said Benjamin broke into a sleeping woman's home and "pulled a sheet over her head." Benjamin tied the woman up, raped her and stole cash and jewelry from her home, then fled, according to the district attorney's office. More than a year later, he similarly broke into another woman's home while she was asleep, prosecutors said.
Haney said by phone Thursday he took an interest in Rinderknecht's case because there were things I knew about this case factually and things that didn't make sense to me. It's a very strange case, he added. Haney said prosecutors were using Rinderknecht as a scapegoat and said the attempt to hold him criminally liable for the failure of others is preposterous. There were blatant failures by governmental agencies that were intervening causes between the Lachman and Palisades fires, he said.
Islamabad Additional and Sessions Judge Mohammad Afzal Majoka formally indicted 22-year-old Umar Hayat with murder and stealing Yousaf's phone. According to AP news agency and Pakistani news outlets, Hayat plead not guilty to all charges against him. According to Pakistani media outlet Dawn, Hayat contended that all accusations against him were "based on falsehood." Afzal Majoka adjourned the session, with the next hearing slated for September 25.
The indictment, unsealed Monday in U.S, District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, arose from an inquiry into whether lawyers were "judge-shopping" - looking for sympathetic judges - in a case challenging Alabama's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. On May 20, 2022, three federal judges in Alabama questioned Charles, asking if he had called any judge's chambers about the assignment of the case, according to the indictment. Charles said he had not. But he "later amended his answers to state he actually called a judge's clerk," Reuters reports. "He apologized for his earlier response."
