Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was indicted Thursday on first-degree murder and weapons charges in the death of a friend whose bullet-riddled body was found in an industrial park about a mile from the ex-player’s home in Massachusetts.
The six-count grand jury indictment charges Hernandez with killing 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, a semiprofessional football player from Boston who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s girlfriend.
Hernandez, 23, pleaded not guilty to murder and weapons charges in June, and he is being held without bail.
He had a brief court appearance in Attleboro, Mass. Afterward, his attorney Michael Fee said the defense was pleased to be on a path to a jury trial and was looking forward to testing the prosecution’s evidence.
UCI professor sentenced to more than 14 years for arson attacks
A UC Irvine professor who set a series of fires after his son’s suicide was sentenced Thursday to 14 years and four months in state prison.
Rainer Klaus Reinscheid, 49, of Irvine pleaded guilty in July to one felony count of arson of another’s property, three felony counts of arson of forest land, two felony counts of arson of a structure, three felony counts of attempted arson and one misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing an officer.
Reinscheid, who taught in UC Irvine’s department of pharmaceutical science and is on unpaid leave from the university, also faced sentencing enhancements for using an accelerant to set the fires.
Prosecutors said Reinscheid was upset at University High School in Irvine for how it handled his son’s suicide in March 2012. Claas Stubbe, 14, hanged himself at Mason Park Preserve after being disciplined for a “minor” theft from a student store.
That July, Reinscheid committed six arsons and three attempted arsons by setting fire to newspapers, brush and a plastic porch chair, among other items. The fires occurred at University High School, at Mason Park Preserve and outside an assistant principal’s home.
Officers with the Irvine Police Department who were patrolling Mason Park Preserve in the wake of the arsons saw Reinscheid attempt to start a fire using a newspaper and lighter fluid. He ignored their orders to stop, and resisted arrest.
Reinscheid was released after posting bail, then arrested again after investigators discovered email drafts threatening to kill the assistant principal of University High School, shoot hundreds of students and burn the school to the ground in a “firestorm that destroys every single building.”
He is scheduled for a restitution hearing Nov. 15.
Las Vegas police say ‘sovereign citizen’ plot is stopped
LAS VEGAS — A sting operation stopped a plot to abduct, torture and kill police officers to bring attention to the anti-authority sovereign citizen movement, Las Vegas police said Thursday.
David Allen Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman were arrested at an apartment a few miles off the Strip before they could carry out a plan to snatch officers, “put them on trial” and execute them in a vacant house, Las Vegas police Lt. James Seebock said.
Federal authorities regard sovereign citizen extremists as domestic terrorists. Authorities have linked sovereign citizen groups with violent confrontations in recent years, including deadly shootings in Louisiana and Arkansas.
Brutsche, 42, and Newman, 67, wanted to draw attention to the group’s rejection of governmental authority, making the case a domestic terrorism plot, Seebock said.
“They were furthering their sovereign citizen ideology by committing criminal acts toward law enforcement,” he said.
Brutsche and Newman were held in Clark County jail pending court appearances on charges including conspiracy to commit murder and attempted kidnapping.
The investigation began when an unidentified undercover officer befriended Brutsche and Newman in April, police said. Hundreds of hours of conversation were recorded over the course of 30 meetings with the undercover officer, police said.
“We need to arrest the police and take them to our jail and put them in a cell and put them on trial in a people’s court,” Brutsche said July 9, according to the arrest report. “If we run into the position that they resist, then we need to kill them.”
Police identified Brutsche as a six-time convicted felon and child sex offender from California. Authorities did not detail a further criminal background for Newman.
Gang rape of photojournalist shocks India; 1 arrested, 4 sought
NEW DELHI — Police in Mumbai arrested one suspect Friday and launched a search for four more after a brutal rape in India’s financial capital sent shock waves across the country, the latest vicious crime against women that’s battered the nation’s global image and led to deep soul-searching.
In a news conference, Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh said that at around 6:30 Thursday evening, a photojournalist in her early 20s, accompanied by a male companion, went to photograph an abandoned textile mill for an essay on abandoned buildings in the lifestyle magazine where she interned.
As they approached the site, he said, they were accosted by two men who told them that photography was not allowed on railway property.
Then “the men tied the male friend’s hands with a belt,” Singh said. “Two of the accused repeatedly raped the girl, turn by turn. There were only two men at first, they called one more, and then called two more.” The attackers are believed in their early 20s and living in the area, he said, adding: “It was a very heinous crime.”
The reported details of the attack were similar to a high-profile rape in the capital of New Delhi in December, in which a 23-year old woman was attacked on a moving bus and her male companion assaulted, sparking violent demonstrations, a new law, fast-track courts and more female police officers. The woman died of internal injuries two weeks later in the hospital.
The latest attack was particularly upsetting for Mumbai, India’s most populous city, which has long enjoyed a reputation as a place where women can travel safely, even at midnight. New Delhi, by contrast, has been dubbed “India’s rape capital.”
News of the Mumbai attack triggered protests, an uproar in Parliament — where opposition lawmakers accused the government of failing to protect women — and outcry on social media.
“Sad validation of the fact that NO city in India is safe for women,” actress Gul Panag, a former Miss India, said in a Twitter post. “Despicable! We are shamed!” added opposition politician Nirmala Sitharaman in another tweet. “How many more before the criminals are punished? Wake up, India!”
[Updated, 8:20 a.m. PDT, Aug. 23: Junior Home Minister R.P.N. Singh told lawmakers that the government had asked state authorities for a detailed report on the attack, and recommended that the “harshest” punishment be handed down to anyone found guilty in the case, the Associated Press reported.]
The victim, who cannot be named under Indian law, was admitted to Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital on Thursday night and is in serious but stable condition with internal injuries, the hospital said in a statement.
Several members of the Mumbai press club protested Friday, criticizing authorities for failing to protect women
Mumbai residents expressed shock and shame over Thursday’s attack. “I think the myth about Mumbai being safer, particularly for working women, was shattered last night,” said Shobhaa De, a columnist and Mumbai socialite. “The character of the city has altered. Absolute lawlessness is prevalent across India.”
Despite the passage of tough new laws after the New Delhi attack, including adding the death penalty for certain types of rape, analysts said political will and enforcement remain weak in a nation where a male-dominated culture is deeply rooted.
“Police don’t want to take responsibility,” said Flavia Agnes, a lawyer and campaigner for women’s rights. “This incident will really bring down the image of the city and will further hurt India’s reputation abroad.”
Though cases such as Thursday’s, involving professional or foreign women, get a lot of attention, activists added, attacks on poor, lower-caste and marginalized women too often go unreported in India, in a culture where rape victims are frequently stigmatized and even forced to marry their attackers.
Rahul Bose, a Bollywood actor and social activist, said there are no quick fixes in a society increasingly fractured and alienated. “If we don’t teach our boys when they’re young, it’s not going to make a difference,” he said. “It’s open season on women.”
A travel industry survey in March found that the number of foreign female tourists coming to India during the first three months of 2013 fell by 35% as news of the December rape in New Delhi spread worldwide. De said she’s frequently asked when she travels abroad whether India is indeed the rape center it’s rumored to be.
“It makes you feel so horrible,” she said. “It’s almost a state of emergency for women across India. Unless we make our voices heard, this will only continue.”
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