Author: J.P. Knowles

A former Mississippi paramedic was sentenced to 40 years in prison with no chance of parole, after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting patients while they were in the ambulance being taken to a hospital.

James Lavelle Walley, 57, of Leakesville, apologized to his victims during his sentencing hearing on Monday,

“I’m asking you, begging you to forgive me,” Walley said to the women and their relatives cried in the courtroom.

placeholderCircuit Judge Robert Krebs said he was not swayed by Walley’s apologies.

“He should be in his late 90s before he’d ever be eligible to get out,” District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said Monday.

Walley pleaded guilty on May 9 to three counts of sexual battery and two counts of touching a child sexually.

McIlrath said Walley committed the crimes between 2016 and 2019 while working as a certified paramedic for ASAP Ambulance. The company, which did fire him, serves patients in Alabama and Mississippi.

Walley was in the back of the ambulance with the victims when the assaults occurred. The drivers claimed they had no knowledge of the attacks, court records showed.

Krebs on Monday apologized to the victims because they had faced doubt from some law enforcement officers or others in the criminal justice system.

“My apologies that you weren’t believed,” the judge said.

Walley had no criminal history before his arrest.

In each criminal case, victims were vulnerable because they had a medical condition that required emergency care at the time Walley assaulted them. McIlrath said Walley raped a pregnant patient in an ambulance in 2018 as she was being taken to a hospital, and the woman miscarried hours later.

More details came to light in the civil lawsuits that were filed on behalf of the victims who said Walley assaulted them during emergency trips to south Mississippi hospitals. The civil cases have been settled and dismissed.

Two men have been charged in connection to the University of Missouri-Columbia hazing incident that left 19-year-old freshman Daniel Santulli blind and unable to speak or walk on his own.

A grand jury in Boone County, Missouri, on Friday indicted Ryan Patrick Delanty, of Ballwin, and Thomas Andrew Shultz, of Chesterfield, on felony hazing charges, as well as misdemeanor offenses of supplying liquor to a minor or intoxicated person.

Santulli is being cared for by his parents who have sued the fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, the owner of the house, and 23 members. All but two members have settled the civil lawsuit out of court.

Shultz also faces a felony for tampering with physical evidence in a felony prosecution, the Columbia Missourian reported.

“It’s the worst fraternity hazing injury ever in the United States,” Santulli family attorney, David Bianchi, said. “We’ve been doing these cases for 30 years. I know the landscape of hazing. I know the defense lawyers who defend the fraternities. And everyone agrees this is the worst ever.”

The lawsuit states that on the night of Oct. 19, 2021, Santulli reported to the fraternity house for so-called “Pledge Dad Reveal Night,” after spending weeks sleep-deprived and stressed over the rushing process, in which he has been “repeatedly ordered to clean the brothers’ rooms and bring food, alcohol and marijuana to them at all hours of the night.” He was also instructed to climb into a trash can with broken glass inside, leaving him with a cut on his foot that required stitches and left him using crutches.

Shultz, the fraternity president picked up the alcohol for the night, the lawsuit says. Delanty, named Santulli’s pledge dad, handed him a large bottle of vodka and ordered him to finish it.

Another fraternity brother, Alec Wetzler of St. Louis, poured beer through a funnel into Santulli’s mouth.

Santulli was left on a couch with a blood alcohol level of .468, and the lawsuit says another member witnessed his condition but did nothing. Santulli slid off the couch and his face landed on the floor, with his skin pale and lips blue. Members eventually drove him to a hospital, where medical staff noted he stopped breathing, and his heart had stopped. He was revived and placed on a ventilator.

Days later, he was taken off the ventilator and was able to breath on his own, “but he was unresponsive, unaware of his surroundings, unable to communicate and had a significant injury to his brain,” according to the lawsuit. His condition remains the same nine months later.

The lawsuit says two days before the hazing incident, Santulli had broken down crying on the phone to his sister about the stress of the fraternity initiation process and his family asked him to stop pledging.

“Danny, however, was not a quitter,” the lawsuit says, “and, like so many pledges before him, did not want to be humiliated and ridiculed by those whose ranks he was trying to join. The defendants knew this and had seen it all before.”

The university said in a May press release that the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity chapter had been removed from campus and 13 students have been disciplined, but did not disclose how. placeholder

“Safety of the Mizzou community is our highest priority, and we must address alcohol use and other concerns in holistic ways to provide education and services that work together to support safer behavior and an overall culture,” Mun Choi, University of Missouri president, said in a statement at the time. “In our conversation with student leaders, they are 100 percent with us in making our campus even safer for everyone, but there is continued work to do.”

A startling video shows a suspect drawing his gun on a man holding a baby inside a gas station convenience store this week.

Detroit Police on Monday shared still images and video related to an aggravated assault investigation stemming from an incident that happened at approximately 5:50 p.m. Sunday.

The video shows the suspect walking toward the gas station with both hands visible. He passed through the parking lot by another man who had just finished pumping gas and got back into his SUV without acknowledging the suspect.

When the suspect reached the convenience store, he opened the door and pulled a gun from his waistband.

Video taken from different vantage points inside the store shows the suspect pointing the firearm at a man who was standing only a few feet away with a baby sleeping on his shoulder.

The man reacts quickly by throwing his arm up and trying to take the gun. The suspect, still holding the gun, backed out of the store and is seen standing in the lot fiddling with the weapon.

Investigators believe the man’s quick thinking and quick blow to the gun may have caused the weapon to stall.

The baby is just 7 months old, and police believe both men had walked to the gas station separately following an argument. The suspect fled the scene.

Police are working to identify and apprehend the suspect.”

Virginia Beach police say thieves siphoned thousands of dollars worth of fuel from a closed gas station over the course of several days while advertising discounted gas on social media.

The Virginia Beach Police Department (VBPD) announced Thursday the arrests of Rashane Griffith, 24, and Devon Drumgoole, 21, both of Norfolk, on charges of grand larceny, conspiracy, and possession of burglary tools.

Officers responded Tuesday to a report of suspicious activity at the already closed Citgo gas station. Upon arrival, officers observed numerous vehicles and individuals congregating on the property, pumping gasoline.

A preliminary investigation determined that devices were being used to illegally access gas pumps, police said.

The suspects advertised the discounted gas operation on social media. It was determined that thousands of dollars worth of gasoline was stolen from the business over several days, police said.

The department said the investigation by the VBPD Detective Bureau remains active and recommends gas stations that close overnight review security camera footage from the last few weeks to ensure they have not been victims.

“It is recommended these businesses take extra precautions to ensure this does not happen to them in the future,” the Virginia Beach Police Department said in a statement.

The arrests came when national average gas prices reached $5 per gallon. On Sunday, the average price for a gallon of gasoline slipped slightly below the $5 threshold for a second consecutive day, according to American Automobile Association (AAA).

A Texas man was fatally shot by police after he entered a summer camp Monday and opened fire.

More than 150 children were attending summer camp at the Duncanville Fieldhouse when forty-two-year-old Brandon Keith Ned of Dallas, Texas, began firing shots a little before 9 am.

When officers arrived they immediately entered the building, and shot Ned, according to the report.

Shortly after 8:30 a.m., Ned entered the main lobby of the building where he ran into a staff member, the police said. The two exchanged words before Ned fired off one round.

He then tried to enter a classroom but the door was locked. Ned fired one shot into the classroom of children. No one was injured.

Ned made his way to the gymnasium full of children before police engaged him. He was struck when officers “exchanged gunfire with the suspect.” He was taken to the hospital, where he later died.

“Our officers did not hesitate,” Mayor Barry Gordon said noting the officers had just gone through an active shooter training. “They did what they were trained to do and saved lives.”

Duncanville Police Assistant Chief Matthew Stogner said his team takes “security very seriously.”

“We obviously understand what took place in Uvalde just south of here, but I can only talk about how we responded here and we did an exceptional job.”

An investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

Singer and actress, Jennifer Lopez opened up about the way her mother used to “beat” her and her siblings in her latest documentary “Halftime.”

Lopez, 52, talked about her childhood and the strained relationship she had with her mother, Guadalupe “Lupe” Rodriguez in the documentary.

“She did what she had to do to survive, and it made her strong, but it also made her tough,” Lopez said. “She beat the sh– out of us.”

“I was far from the perfect mother,” Rodriguez said. “The one thing I can always say, everything I did, I did with their best interest at heart.”

Lopez said that she and her mother argued over the singer’s education. Rodriguez wanted Lopez to get an education so that she would not have to rely on men.

“I always had the highest expectations of them,” she added. “It wasn’t to be critical. It was only to show you that you could do better. And Jennifer, she gave me the hardest time, to tell you the truth. We butted heads a lot.”

“Halftime” premiered on June 8 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary dropped on June 14 on Netflix.

“‘Halftime’ offers an intimate peek behind the curtain revealing the grit and determination that makes Jennifer Lopez the icon she is, from her performances on screen and on stages around the world, to her Super Bowl halftime show, to the recent presidential inauguration,” a Tribeca Film Festival press release said.

“The documentary focuses on an international superstar who has inspired people for decades with her perseverance, creative brilliance, and cultural contributions. And it’s only the beginning.”

Fans are given a behind-the-scenes look at Lopez’s life and her struggle to be “taken seriously” as an actress and performer.

Lopez also discusses her frustrations with the NFL in “Halftime.”

“This is the worst idea in the world to have two people do the Super Bowl,” Lopez told her music director. “It was the worst idea in the world.”

The star’s manager, Bobby Medina, also had his frustrations with the NFL and the decision to have two headliners at the 2020 halftime show.

“Typically you have one headliner at a Super Bowl,” Medina said in the documentary. “That headliner constructs a show, and, should they choose to have other guests, that’s their choice. It was an insult to say you needed two Latinas to do the job that one artist historically has done.”

“If it was going to be a double headliner, they should have given us 20 minutes,” Lopez said in the documentary. “That’s what they should’ve f—ing done.”

While a Supreme Court case involving a former Washington high school football coach and religious liberty awaits a decision, Sports Illustrated was chastised for a tweet on the subject on Monday.

Former Bremerton High School student Joseph Kennedy kneels in front of the Supreme Court, according to the sports magazine’s daily cover.

“SCOTUS will soon rule on the case of a public school football coach who wants to pray on-field after games,” the tweet read. “@GregBishopSI on Joe Kennedy, the machine backing him and the expected result: a win for Kennedy and an erosion of a bedrock of American democracy.”

Rep. Yvette Herrell joined other Twitter users who took issue with the comment.

“Sports Illustrated seems to be under the impression that coaches and players praying on the field spells the end of American democracy,” Herrell wrote. “If that were true, American democracy would have been destroyed long before the legendary Jim Thorpe threw his first pigskin.”

Disappointing article Greg
I knelt and prayed after every game I played in the NFL. It was my way of publicly thanking god. With all the challenges in todays society we should encourage faith not discourage.
Freedom OF religion is very different than freedom FROM religion

— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) June 13, 2022

Both bigoted and historically illiterate. https://t.co/hoFf5ne7zY

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) June 13, 2022

SI coming out swinging against the First Amendment and public prayer as erosion of the "bedrock of democracy" is certainly a choice… https://t.co/sTZxoIhG0U

— Nate Madden (@NateOnTheHill) June 13, 2022

The Supreme Court will consider whether Kennedy’s job at Bremerton High School was legally suspended when he refused to cease praying on the field at the end of games.

The nine justices will consider whether a public school employee who claims to be praying alone at school while visible to pupils is participating in “government speech” that is not protected by the First Amendment.

The school administration maintained that the act wasn’t a private moment of contemplation because it entailed public prayers with children, some of whom felt compelled to participate.

“The machine backing him” is the US Constitution. And it’s telling that Sports Illustrated thinks the Constitution is a threat to “democracy.” https://t.co/wsYROrQS1I

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 13, 2022

Kennedy was in the Marine Corps for 18 years and also worked at a local naval shipyard in Bremerton, roughly 20 miles west of Seattle across Puget Sound. In 2008, he returned to Bremerton to work as an assistant varsity coach.

All of the lower courts have decided in favor of the institution. By kneeling and praying in front of students and parents, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that Kennedy “spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected.”

Three years later, the Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, may be prepared to rule in Kennedy’s favor.

 

ABC News anchor Amy Robach sat down with Kathleen Buhle, the ex-wife of Hunter Biden, and discussed a recently published memoir about her life with her infamous ex-husband.

Robach asked Buhle how she felt about several hot topics, including her ex-husband’s drug “addiction,” his earnings from being on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, the pictures from his laptop, and whether she had issues with Joe and Jill Biden signaling support for Hunter’s subsequent relationship with his deceased brother Beau’s widow.

The GMA anchor opened the interview by explaining that it was Buhle’s long-awaited reaction to her husband’s “troubled personal life.” “Hunter Biden has of course attracted a great deal of attention over his business dealings, his troubled, and turbulent personal life. Through it all his former wife Kathleen Buhle has remained in the shadows, but now in her new memoir, ‘If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing,’ she is now breaking her silence,” Robach began.

Robach asked Buhle about her husband’s addictions. “At what point in your marriage did you realize that Hunter had a drinking problem?” she asked.

“With addiction especially there’s so much shame surrounding it that it becomes something that we don’t talk about,” Buhle responded.

Robach pressed her on the photos from Hunter Biden’s laptop. “We’ve seen images of Hunter, the ones that were on his laptop looking disheveled. Was that the husband you knew in moments, at times?” she asked.

“Not at all,” she responded, adding, “He was struggling under a massive drug addiction and that’s heartbreaking and painful and that wasn’t who I was married to.”

The Good Morning America host moved on to her husband’s corrupt business dealings. Robach stated, “you say you weren’t really involved in the finances at all.”

“It’s embarrassing to say that I ceded all financial control to my husband,” Buhle claimed, adding, “I liked the nice things and I didn’t want to think about the cost at which they were coming. Writing this book really helped me to understand how unfair that was to Hunter and how unhealthy that was for me.”

The host asked Buhle whether she would ever testify against Biden if requested.

“No. I have buried my head in the sand. I really hope that’s a lesson that women hear, understand your finances, take responsibility for them,” she replied.

Robach pressed, “Did he deliberately curry favor or seek profit based on who his father was? That’s the question people ask. In your experience as his wife did you see that?”

Buhle skirted the question, saying, “I saw someone who loved his father, respected his parents, and was proud to be their son.”

Robach shifted to the topic of Hunter Biden starting a relationship with his late brother’s widow while still married to her, asking Buhle how she felt about Joe and Jill Biden approving of the affair.

Buhle’s only comment was: “The one thing I’ve never ever questioned was Joe and Jill’s love and attention to my three daughters. Divorce was hard on all of us because we were very close, but we come together out of a shared love for my daughters.”

Christina Marie Hernandez is known for posting many photos and videos of her colorful nail designs on TikTok.

Hialeah police say those images helped identify her as the person who uploaded over a dozen child pornography files to the messaging app KIK.

Hernandez, 29, was arrested at her home in Hialeah Thursday on 13 counts of possessing child-porn images. She was booked into Miami-Dade jail.

At the time of her arrest, Hernandez was confronted with the illegal videos, and “she admitted to knowingly downloading and disseminating child pornography over the Internet.” Hernandez also admitted to “requesting specific” child porn from other Internet users, according to the arrest report.

KIK is a free messaging app with chat rooms that have been used to exchange child porn images in many cases in South Florida and across the country. In April a Miami-Dade police officer was arrested for trading explicit images on KIK.

A cyber tip prompted Hialeah police detectives to focus on the KIK uploads and an IP address registered to Hernandez’s phone. According to the arrest report, The 13 videos she had uploaded depicted girls between the ages of 5 and 14 being sexually abused.

Police found that the KIK account registered to Hernandez featured child porn images, as well as explicit selfies that featured a woman’s distinct nail designs: white flowers with white petals and pink, blue, yellow, and green lines, court records show.

Detectives turned to other social media outlets to verify it was her account. Her public TikTok account showed her “very distinctive nail designs with different themes including diamonds.”

Based in part on the TikTok evidence, a search warrant was issued to gain access to her private Instagram account which featured many of the same selfies found on the KIK account. The Instagram account also featured two images of the distinctive nail designs found on the KIK account, which were “co-mingled with child pornography,” according to records.

Those distinct nail photos were uploaded “within the same time frame” that the child porn was uploaded, police say.

Charlie Sheen Blames Ex Denise Richards For Their Daughter Joining OnlyFans Sam “Sami” Sheen, daughter of Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen has joined OnlyFans and her famous father is not happy about it.

“She is 18 years now and living with her mother,” the former “Two and a Half Men” star said Tuesday. “This did not occur under my roof. I do not condone this, but since I’m unable to prevent it, I urged her to keep it classy, and creative, and not sacrifice her integrity.”

The media influencer, who has 47K followers on Instagram, turned 18 in March and has since moved back in with Richards, 51.

Richards said that she is aware of her daughter’s latest business venture.

“Sami is 18, and this decision wasn’t based on whose house she lives in,” the actress said. “All I can do as a parent is guide her and trust her judgment, but she makes her own choices.”

OnlyFans, a subscription-based platform, allows creators to share and monetize their content, which can be explicit. Celebrities, such as Carmen Electra, Bella Thorne, Shanna Moakler, and Cardi B, among others, have joined the site to control their image and interact with fans.

The site became popular at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when numerous sex workers joined to get paid more safely. The site has been extremely lucrative for some, allowing them to earn thousands monthly.

In August of last year, OnlyFans announced it had 130 million users and 2 million creators who have collectively earned $5 billion. That same month, the site said it suspended its initial plan to ban sexually explicit content following an outcry from its creators and advocates for sex workers.

Sami’s decision to join OnlyFans came a few weeks after the teen reconnected with her mother. In September of last year, Sami claimed in a since-deleted TikTok video that she was “trapped” in an “abusive home” while living with her mother. In February of this year, Richards admitted that they had a strained relationship.

“It’s very difficult,” said Richards. “I know we’ll get back to where we were eventually, but right now, it is strained.”

It was then that Sami moved in with her father, 56.

“Obviously I would love for her to live with me,” said Richards. “She lived with me all these years. But I think it’s very difficult raising teenagers now and especially in Los Angeles when there’s access to everything. We didn’t grow up with Postmates and Uber, where you have everything that you want. There are certain rules and I enforce them. And there are different rules at that house and that’s OK.”

The star also said, “Charlie and I, we were on different pages from the beginning.”

Richards said she doesn’t “agree with certain things” her ex-husband does.

“But that’s OK. We can agree to disagree,” Richards said, adding that she’s “not super strict” However, she does have “rules and boundaries.”

The mother and daughter have since reconnected.

“They are getting along very well,” said the source, adding that Sami “loves her dad.”

Sheen and Richards married in 2002 before splitting in 2006. The pair also share a 17-year-old daughter named Lola Rose Sheen.

Sami took to Instagram on Monday to announce her new OnlyFans page.

“Click the link in my bio if you wanna see more,” she captioned a photo of herself wearing a black triangle bikini. She also promised to “upload new content 2-3 times a week.”

“My messages are open so come talk to me!!” she added.