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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Dad pleads guilty to paying $250K to get son into USC as fake volleyball recruit

2019-07-25

[USATODAY] Jeffrey Bizzack, a business executive from Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to paying $250,000 to get his son admitted to the University of Southern California as a fake volleyball recruit. He's now the 23rd defendant to admit guilt out of 51 charged in the sweeping "Varsity Blues" college admissions scandal. The other 28 are preparing for trial. Bizzack, of Solana Beach, California, appeared before U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock, who approved a plea agreement between Bizzack and federal prosecutors reached last month. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and he's also agreed to cooperate with federal Sherlocks. Prosecutors say Bizzack paid $200,000 to college consultant Rick Singer, the criminal mastermind of the cheating and recruitment bribery scheme, and $50,000 to USC. Bizzack, 59, is the co-founder of Outerknown, a clothing store and fashion company, and a past business partner of heralded surfer Kelly Slater, whose Kelly Slater Wave Company builds wave pools. Bizzack is also the former president and vice chairman of the company ServiceSource.

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Home Front: WoT

Friends of accused Boston bomber told FBI backpack was dumped

2014-07-15

[ZEENEWS.INDIA] A friend of the accused Boston Marathon bomber, charged with obstructing the probe into the blasts, and his roommate "simultaneously" told the FBI a backpack belonging to the suspect had been thrown into a dumpster, an agent said Monday. Azamat Tazhayakov is the first of three friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to face trial on charges of interfering with the investigation into the blasts by removing a laptop and the backpack, which contained empty fireworks casings, from Tsarnaev's room three days after the April 15, 2013, attacks that killed three people and injured 264. FBI Special Agent John Walker interviewed Tazhayakov, his roommate and fellow Kazakh exchange student Dias Kadyrbayev and a woman described as Kadyrbayev's girlfriend in the days after the attacks, at one point recovering a baseball cap and ash tray taken from Tsarnaev's room at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. On April 20, the second day of interviewing the friends, Walker told the pair that the FBI was trying to find the backpack. "They told me simultaneously that the backpack had been placed in the dumpster and that a refuse truck had removed the dumpster from the location the previous day," he said. Walker acknowledged that Tazhayakov had not said that he had thrown the backpack into the dumpster, and that it was Kadyrbayev who described the dumpster and its location on the grounds of the apartment complex in New Bedford, Massachusetts, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Boston. Other FBI agents recovered the backpack at a landfill several days later. It contained fireworks with the gunpowder removed, a spiral notebook, a jar of Vaseline - which an FBI forensic examiner has testified can be used to make an bomb - and a homework assignment from an ethics class in which Tsarnaev was enrolled. Prosecutors rested their case following Walker's testimony on Monday, the defense presented no witnesses and U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock set closing arguments for Wednesday. FBI agent Farbod Azad testified last week that Tazhayakov told him he and Kadyrbayev and a third man, Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Massachusetts, had removed the backpack and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room. Tazhayakov's attorneys say their client never touched the backpack or the fireworks, and that it was Kadyrbayev who threw them out. Kadyrbayev's girlfriend, Bayan Kumiskali, said in a videotaped deposition shown in court that she became upset when she learned of the backpack and asked her boyfriend to "get it out of the apartment." The attorneys argued before the trial that Tazhayakov's statements during an initial FBI interview, which began April 19 and ran into the next morning, should not be admitted at trial because he had not believed he was free to go at the time. Tazhayakov could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Kadyrbayev faces the same charges. Phillipos is accused of the lesser charge of lying to Sherlocks. Tsarnaev is awaiting trial on terrorism charges.

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Down Under

Australia 'blessed' by Sheik: says visiting British Muslim

2006-10-26

AUSTRALIA was blessed by the presence of the Muslim leader who compared immodest women to uncovered meat, sparking accusations that he condoned rape, a visiting British Muslim cleric has said. Muslim leaders at Sydney's Lakemba mosque last night met for four hours to determine the fate of Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, who outraged Muslim community leaders and federal and state politicians with his comments, which he made during a Ramadan sermon last month. Alluding to rapes in 2000 where four women were separately gang-raped by a group of young Muslim men, the sheik said there were women who "sway suggestively" and wore makeup and inappropriate clothes, The Australian reported. "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?" the sheik asked. "The uncovered meat is the problem." "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (head scarf), no problem would have occurred." But British Muslim Council of Great Britain chairman Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid today said it appeared to him that the comments had been taken out of context. "I know that he is one of the greatest Muslim scholars on earth and Australia is blessed with him, and I know he went to Iraq to get released an Australian national (Douglas Wood) from the clutches of a heinous regime at the time," Dr Sajid told the Nine Network's Today program. "We have to appreciate and give him the credit with the result (Mr Wood's release) but I agree and take your point that he must communicate better. "Probably his comments have been taken out of context. "Probably he needs to restrain himself to get the words right before he says anything. "Probably he needs to look into the wider implications of his comments. I think all these will take time. I have no doubt of his integrity, his leadership and also his belonging to this country, which he has adopted to live (in)."

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Southeast Asia

Al-Qaeda, JI sharing training camps in Southeast Asia

2006-04-08

AUSTRALIA'S top cop has evidence that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group is infiltrating South-East Asia. Mick Keelty yesterday warned that al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiah cells were sharing expertise at terrorist training camps in the area. The Australian Federal Police Commissioner revealed al-Qaida was forging links with other extremist groups in South-East Asia. Mr Keelty hopes the AFP will become part of a permanent regional anti-terrorism taskforce to counter the threat. A working party will meet in the region within weeks to discuss agencies joining to fight the common curse of terrorism. "I am very keen for the AFP to play a major role in the proposed regional taskforce," Mr Keelty told the Herald Sun. In an interview to mark the first week of his second five-year term as AFP Commissioner, Mr Keelty also revealed: HIS personal opposition to the death penalty would not stop him or the AFP co-operating fully with police from countries that execute criminals. IF another Bali Nine situation arose in a death penalty country, he would have no hesitation in again tipping off police in that country. DEPORTED French terror suspect Willie Brigitte was a significant threat to Australia and was almost certainly establishing a cell in Sydney to commit terrorist acts. AVAILABLE evidence would lead any reasonable person to conclude former Melbourne taxi driver "Jihad" Jack Thomas was an al-Qaida recruit who was setting himself up in Australia as a sleeper agent for future use by al-Qaida. BURGEONING threats from terrorist and organised crime groups meant it was time to consider radical reforms to Australia's judicial system, because the odds were currently in favour of the accused. AUSTRALIAN authorities should consider establishing special terrorism courts to hear terrorism cases. IT was time to consider allowing courts and jurors to draw adverse inferences against those on trial who choose to hide behind their right to silence rather than testify or answer police questions. SOME judges were ruling too much evidence as inadmissible, which was contributing to guilty people going free. HE believed jurors were often embarrassed to find out after returning not guilty verdicts that they never got to hear damning inadmissible evidence that would have changed their minds. INTELLIGENCE suggested the AFP's three most wanted men - terrorists Noordin Top, Dulmatin and Umar Patek - were hiding near the border between the Philippines and Indonesia, and were plotting attacks by keeping in regular contact with extremists in Indonesia and Malaysia. TOP, Dulmatin and Patek were involved in many of the recent terrorist attacks in South-East Asia, including the 2002 Bali bombing which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. INFORMATION provided to the National Security Hotline has greatly helped AFP and ASIO agents identify suspects and make arrests. IT was vital that Australians continued to use the hotline to report suspicious activity because it was almost impossible for agencies alone to stop a suicide bomber. THE AFP is working closely with Australian kidnap victim Douglas Wood and Iraqi police to prepare a brief of evidence against his kidnappers, and is confident those responsible will be convicted. WEST African crime gangs were focusing on Australia to commit fraud and to smuggle drugs. THE mistaken belief by young Australians that it was relatively safe to take ecstasy and amphetamine-based tablets was by far the biggest drug problem facing the community and police. Mr Keelty said he expected countering terrorism and international organised crime gangs would continue to dominate the AFP's activities during his second five-year term as commissioner. "It is increasingly critical that police travel the world to gather evidence that may assist in prosecuting those engaged in terrorism and other forms of crime," he said. "But we encounter a number of constraints imposed by laws relating to evidence that does come from overseas. "I believe Australia's criminal justice system needs to allow courts to exercise even greater discretion to admit evidence acquired in circumstances which may not strictly conform to domestic requirements."

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Home Front: WoT

Former Taliban Spokesman Finds New Haven--at Yale

2006-02-26

The Taliban’s former spokesman, Rahmatullah Hashemi, is now an undergraduate at Yale University here. It was largely for his children's sake that he was pursuing an education on the other side of the earth — for their future and, in some inchoate hope-filled way, for his country's future too. What he often said was that he wanted to be a bridge between the Islamic world and the West. None of the summer students in New Haven knew much about his personal circumstances; of his history they knew nothing at all. He had discussed it with the Yale admissions office, and with an administrator in the provost's office who during a dinner with him seemed concerned that he might be a spy. He did not like to dwell on the past, much less advertise it. To avoid alarming eavesdroppers, he referred to his former compatriots as "the Tangoes." But sometimes the past had a way of finding him. At the start of the fall semester, he made his way to the Henry R. Luce Hall at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. He had a 1 o'clock class — PLSC 145, Terrorism: Past, Present and Future, with Prof. Douglas Woodwell. It was a popular new offering; hardly a seat was open. As he stood in the back hunting for a place to sit, he realized that he had been in Luce Hall before. Four years earlier. March 2001. The university saved a seat for him that afternoon, down on the stage. He was the featured speaker, a "roving ambassador" from the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan. He was 22 years old. The newspapers said 24, but he had been misrepresenting his age for a long time. Twenty-two years old and a member of the Taliban — at that moment, in fact, the very face and voice of the regime in America. Per decree, his beard was full, his head swaddled in a turban. He was dressed in an Afghan tunic and loose-fitting pants. Neither he nor anyone else in Luce Hall that day could have foreseen the catastrophe approaching or what peculiar fate was in store for him. not so sure about the former - the Taliban were cruisin for a bruisin before 9/11 He could remember looking out at the faces of the Yale students in the audience. They were his age, his generation — after a fashion they were taliban, too, talib being the Arabic word for seeker or student — but they sat on the far side of an abyss, and not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined himself as one of them.... A few weeks after our visit, aching for his family, Rahmatullah hit a low point. The semester was ending. Everyone was heading home to see his family but him. He could not leave the country on his visa with any assurance of its being renewed in time for class. The future, his vague hopes of returning to Afghanistan to work in education, seemed remote. He said to Ahmed one day, "What is the meaning of life?" and answered for himself: "Family." And then out poured reasons that he should abandon his education and go home. He was neglecting his duties as a father and husband. His children were pining for him; his wife was upset. He missed his parents. And all the young minds around him were so fresh, it was daunting sometimes, people who looked as if they were hardly paying attention in class blazed through their exams. What was he really learning? When you studied political science, you were always focused on how messed up the world was. He wished he could study the stars, but as Hoover had sensibly said, "The world doesn't need an Afghan astrophysicist." He had been raised in a faith, buoyed at every turn by the certainty of a higher order, a purposeful universe, and now here in this shrine of critical thinking he was learning to doubt, not to believe.

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Iraq-Jordan

Wood 'to testify against captors'

2005-08-30

AUSTRALIAN businessman Douglas Wood, who was once forced to plead for his life on video, may go back in front of a camera to give evidence against his former Iraqi captors. Mr Wood, now in the US packing up to return to Australia, said he had been told by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) that six more of his alleged kidnappers had been captured in Iraq. This would bring to eight the number of alleged captors in custody. "What I was told by the AFP just last week is that they have caught six more of our captors," Mr Wood told Channel 10. An AFP spokeswoman was unable to confirm Mr Wood's comments. Mr Wood said he had agreed to give evidence by video link in the trials, although he had no idea when that might be. The 64-year-old who is almost legally blind as a result of his 47-day ordeal, said he had nevertheless been able to help police track down the captors, who are believed to have killed several people including Mr Wood's Iraqi driver. "They said they caught the six based on the debriefing that I gave, which said where the house was and what people looked like," Mr Wood said. He was shown photographs of his alleged attackers. "I identified a couple of people and rejected one, and tentatively on another one – I would have to see a profile," he said. "The information I have now is that eight people have been captured and taken out of business." A Swedish hostage held alongside Mr Wood in Iraq, Ulf Hjertstrom, has reportedly hired bounty hunters to track down his kidnappers. He wants them punished with execution. But Mr Wood said he wanted to see justice done the legal way. "I'm not a vigilante to take justice into your own hands, like Ulf apparently does," he said.

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Down Under

Anti-Aussie Muslims 'should go'

2005-08-24

MUSLIMS in Australia who don't want to accept local values should leave the country, Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson said today. Muslim schools will have to denounce terrorism as part of an effort to stamp out home-grown extremism, under measures announced yesterday following a meeting between Muslim leaders and Prime Minister John Howard. Dr Nelson said today he would meet with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils to discuss programs that ensure students understand Australia's history, culture and values. He said all Australian schools were required to teach the national values framework, including tolerance, responsibility and understanding, to students. People who were not prepared to follow these Australian values should "clear off", he said. "We believe in giving every person a fair go, we don't care where people come from, we don't mind what religion they've got," Dr Nelson said. "But what we want them to do is commit to the Australian constitution, Australian rule of law and basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off." Treasurer Peter Costello has also raised the prospect of the government asking radical Muslims clerics who put Islamic law above Australian law to leave the country if they are dual citizens. "There might be other countries where the system of law is more acceptable to them," he said. "If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option." Habib slammed Meanwhile, Dr Nelson will meet with the University of Western Sydney (UWS) vice-chancellor to discuss a controversial address given on campus by former Guantanamo detainee Mamdouh Habib. Mr Habib, who was released without charge in January this year after being held for more than three years at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, condemned Australia's hardline approach to terrorist suspects. He reportedly described the US as a "pack of terrorists" during the open-air forum at the university's Bankstown campus on Monday. Dr Nelson today said that while the forum on war, terrorism and civil liberties had been organised by the UWS Students Association and not the university, he would still seek an explanation from vice-chancellor Janice Reid over Mr Habib's appearance. "When I saw the report of that ... I immediately got on to the vice-chancellor's office out there at the University of Western Sydney," Dr Nelson said on Southern Cross radio. "I'm seeing her shortly ... to find out what on earth is going on." Dr Nelson said he had been informed that the student union had invited Mr Habib to give a lecture to about 100 students assembled at Bankstown, where he "peddled his anti-American view of the world". "I was reassured that there was no expense involved as far as the taxpayer is concerned," Dr Nelson said. Under laws introduced into Parliament in March by Dr Nelson, university students will no longer have to join student unions and pay compulsory union fees. Dr Nelson said he was also concerned by a recent UWS student newspaper editorial which said former hostage in Iraq Douglas Wood was an example of someone living off the fat of dead Iraqis. "Why should the average student who wants an education be funding all that sort of nonsense?" he said. "That's where we're coming from." Dr Nelson said if student services were up to scratch, there would be no problem convincing students to join the union. "I encourage students to join all of these things – sporting, cultural, political – but under no circumstances should they be forced," he said. Mr Habib was captured in Pakistan in late 2001 on suspicion of terrorist activities. He claims he was taken to Egypt and tortured between November 2001 and February 2002 before being moved to Guantanamo Bay. Since his release, Mr Habib has become a regular on the speaking circuit, addressing University of Technology students last month and a rally in March to mark the International Day of Action. Earlier today, Mr Habib said he was stabbed in an attack by three men near his Sydney home on Monday, but did not need hospital treatment.

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Down Under

Blind Wood battles the legacy of captivity

2005-08-12

Brave man. What's happened to him is a damn shame! OT, I remember reading some moderate muslims(Tm) on their main french forum joking about his "new haircut", when his head was shaven, and saying how he was soon to be shaven "even closer" (ie decapitated, insh allah). Of course, the thread was killed by mods, but it's good to know what the pious followers of the Master Religion are thinking about western hostages... empathy doesn't seem to be their strong suit. Douglas Wood, the Australian held captive in Iraq for 47 days, is now virtually blind and suffering rheumatoid arthritis. Mr Wood has no peripheral vision and no near sight partly because his kidnappers did not treat his diabetes and glaucoma, The Age has reported. Iraqi soldiers freed the engineer, 64, on June 15 after he had been held hostage in Baghdad by a group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq. "He can barely walk up stairs," a family spokesman said. In June, Mr Wood said his eyesight was poor due to the malnutrition he suffered while in captivity and the side-effects from heavy doses of steroids for his rheumatoid arthritis. His spokesman said he went without his medication during his time in captivity and was given only bread and water. "He has no peripheral vision at all and cannot see a hand under his nose," he said. "He needs to be guided and he is also walking extremely slowly as a result of the arthritis." However, he stressed not all of the deterioration was the result of the kidnapping The spokesman said Mr Wood was coping well. "He hasn't crashed and burned. He is very buoyant with a great coping mechanism and he has not wanted to bleat publicly about his health. He doesn't complain about anything. "His wife has been terrific, she's the ultimate carer. She really looks after him." Mr Wood and his American wife, Yvonne, are in the US but plan to return Australia shortly and set up home in Melbourne after Mr Wood's step-daughter's graduation ceremony in the US. Because of Mr Wood's ill health the couple wanted to live close to public transport and they have leased an apartment in Melbourne's inner-city. The spokesman said Mr Wood had a strong character and a prodigious memory for detail that helped him during his time in captivity. "He's not just a beer-swilling larrikin - that's just part of his persona," he said. Mr Wood, who has been reissued with a Medicare card, still hopes to tell his story on the speaking circuit and he has said that he is keen to open an Australian pub. He previously ran a pub while he was living in California.

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Down Under

Wood family gives thanks to mufti

2005-07-31

THE brother of freed hostage Douglas Wood today visited the senior Islamic cleric who travelled to Iraq to try to secure his brother's freedom. Malcolm Wood presented the mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly, with a gift at his Sydney home and said his help was greatly appreciated. Australian engineer Douglas Wood, 64, was freed by Iraqi and American soldiers on June 15, after being held hostage for six weeks. Before Mr Wood's release, Sheik al-Hilaly travelled to Iraq to try to negotiate his freedom. "At danger to his life and in ill health he went to Iraq ... (to) help save our brother Douglas," Malcolm Wood said today. "I think it's likely the Sheik's efforts helped immeasurably." Before joining the mufti and his family for brunch, Malcolm Wood said his brother was still suffering from ill health after his ordeal. "He's okay but he has some health problems," Mr Wood said. "His vision is still very poor and he has severe rheumatoid arthritis." Mr Wood said Douglas was visiting the US, but hoped to meet with the mufti personally to thank him in the future.

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Down Under

Australia names new chief spy in security reshuffle

2005-07-10

SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced a reshuffle of his key intelligence and security staff on Sunday, including the appointment of a foreign affairs specialist as the head of the nation’s chief spy agency. Howard said Paul O’Sullivan, a deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and adviser on his staff, would take over as director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Australia had been without an ASIO director general since former head Dennis Richardson was appointed in May as Australia’s next ambassador to the United States. But Howard moved quickly to install a new chief spy after Thursday’s deadly bomb blasts on the London transport system. “He’ll do a first-class job, he’s got the right balance of foreign affairs experience, intelligence background ... but also having worked at the very highest level of government,” Howard told Nine Network television. Nick Warner, who headed Australia’s emergency response team sent to Baghdad after Australian Douglas Wood was taken hostage by insurgents, was also elevated to Howard’s staff. Warner has a high profile in the South Pacific region after after winning respect as the leader of an intervention force sent to restore order in the lawless Solomon Islands two years ago. Howard, who said he had spoken to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and attended a church service for victims on Sunday, said it was possible transport security measures could be tightened after Tuesday’s meeting. “I don’t rule out a further strengthening of security measures,” he said. “I cannot credibly guarantee there will not be an attack on our soil, it’s a sad reality that we are a target,” he said.

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Iraq-Jordan

Captors should face full force of law: Wood

2005-07-03

Freed Australian hostage Douglas Wood says he would like to see his captors face the "top penalty" under Iraqi law. "I would like them to be arrested, tried and if they have the ultimate penalty as their, yes, so if hanging's the program or if it's life imprisonment, I want the system to work," Mr Wood told Monica Attard on ABC radio's Sunday Profile. No Stockholm syndrome here... "They deserve to be caught. Maybe they deserve to die, maybe they deserve life imprisonment, whatever the top penalty is." Mr Wood has also admitted he had a somewhat cavalier attitude to security while he was working in Iraq. He says Baghdad was a "difficult city" to work in. "The city itself is now a pile of concrete walls where the security efforts to stop people from blowing up hotels and sheltering each other," he said. "A lot of the shops have been boarded up, I think a little bit like the terror that the mafia went through when they played their games of, 'you're not allowed to open unless you pay me'. You're very conscious of the need for security," he added. Asked whether looking back he was too cavalier, Mr Wood said: "There are certain things I wouldn't do, yes." Pressed on what those things would be, he added: "Like not being so cavalier." Mr Wood told Sunday Profile he did not return to his home in Baghdad nor his business after his release from captivity, so he does not know what is left. He also says he will not contribute to a "five-figure" sum his family plans to pay to an Iraqi charity. "I think I'll limit mine to the families," he said, referring to relatives of his Iraqi workers who were killed.

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Iraq-Jordan

Former hostage hire bounty hunters to go after his kidnappers

2005-06-26

Sydney Morning Herald. Hat tip: Tim Blair. The Viking spirit lives on! A hostage held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one. Swede Ulf Hjertstrom, who was held for several weeks with Mr Wood in Baghdad, was released by his kidnappers on May 30. Mr Hjertstrom has since claimed he shared information with US and Iraqi troops about Mr Wood which led to the release of the 63-year-old Australian engineers two weeks ago, after 47 days in captivity. Now, he wants to find those responsible. "I have now put some people to work to find these bastards," he told the Ten Network today. "I invested about $50,000 so far and we will get them one by one."

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