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Tag: indictment

  • Camille Grammer: Grand Jury Didn’t Indict Ex

    Camille Grammer is “shocked and disappointed” that a grand jury didn’t indict ex-boyfriend Dimitri Charalambopoulos on felony assault charges following his assault on her in a Houston hotel room last year. Charalambopoulos appeared in front of a Texas grand jury this week but they didn’t believe there was enough evidence for a conviction if the case went to trial. He was still charged, however.

    “I was just shocked. I’m very disappointed,” the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star told E! News.

    Grammer was initially granted a temporary restraining order against her former boyfriend immediately following the attack. From there she secured a three-year restraining order against him. That was granted in January.

    Camille Grammer hasn’t experienced the best set of circumstances in recent years. Her very public, bitter divorce and from Frasier star Kelsey Grammer–and the accompanying custody fight– were difficult enough. Then she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. That was discovered last October and by January she had completed a course of both radiation and chemotherapy. It was shortly thereafter that Dimitri Charalambopoulos allegedly assaulted her.

    Despite this week’s set back with the grand jury, Camille Grammer is maintaining a positive outlook.

    “That said,” she said of the grand jury’s decision, “I’m just so happy I’m in remission. I got a really good report from my doctor and that’s the most important thing. “We’ll see what happens next. I am disappointed, but I’m going to put it in the past and move on.”

    She also has loads of support from her Twitter followers.

    Remaining positive is important for everyone and has been proven to be especially important for those fighting serious diseases like cancer. Camille Grammer’s attitude is definitely a strong and positive one–not only with regard to this week’s court decision, however. Back in March she sounded determined to beat the odds in all facets of her life. She tweeted some incredibly positive sentiments that she no doubt still stands by today.

    Image via Twitter

  • JonBenet Ramsey: Grand Jury Voted for Indictment of Parents in 1999

    Everyone remembers the murder of the young beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey. The story made headlines and had people intrigued all over the United States.

    According to JonBenet’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, the family had been attending a Christmas party the night before her disappearance. Supposedly, JonBenet fell asleep in the car on the ride home and her parents carried her upstairs to her bed. That was the last time they saw their daughter. The next morning, around 5:00 a.m., Patsy walked downstairs into her kitchen and discovered a ransom note saying that they had kidnapped their daughter and were holding her captive until they received a ransom of $118,000. The note said that they would make a phone call to set up an exchange of the money for JonBenet, however the call never came and neither did JonBenet.

    JonBenet was later found in the basement of her home by her father, John Ramsey. “As I was walking through the basement, I opened the door to a room and knew immediately that I’d found her because there was a white blanket — her eyes were closed, I feared the worse but yet — I’d found her,” John said later.

    John and Patsy were immediately considered suspects in the murder of their daughter, but due to lack of evidence, they were never charged. In December 1996, The Rocky Mountain News quoted an Assistant District Attorney as saying, “It was very unusual for a kidnap victim’s body to be found at home — it’s not adding up.” Police and investigators also made it clear that they were focusing on the parents as their primary suspects at the time.

    Now, almost 17 years later, the case is still open and still remains a mystery. However, new information has been released regarding the parents in the case and has lead to a lawsuit. Daily Camera reporter, Charlie Brennan and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have sued the Boulder County District Attorney, Stan Garnett on Wednesday. They are requesting the release of an apparent indictment that was secretly voted on by the grand jury in the case in 1999.

    “The plaintiffs believe… that the indictment is a criminal justice record that reflects official action by the grand jury, and accordingly that it is subject to mandatory disclosure upon request,” attorney Thomas B. Kelley wrote. “Alternatively, they argue the indictment should be disclosed to the public because such disclosure would serve the public interest in government transparency and not be contrary to the public interest nor cause undue adverse effect upon the privacy of the individual.”

    Garnett has previously rejected this request on two different occasions. “We will respond to the motion in a pleading in court,” Garnett said. “Protecting the integrity of the grand jury process is important to every district attorney.”

    The indictment was never prosecuted because the District Attorney, Alex Hunter, refused to sign the document saying: “I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Dotcom Speaks Out Against Megaupload Indictment

    Kim Dotcom is finally speaking out. In an interview with TorrentFreak, Dotcom outlines his eagerness to fight claims from the government that Megaupload was nothing more than a site designed to make others copyrighted material available to the masses. Dotcom believes the site offered a legitimate service and is being shutdown for political reasons.

    In January, Dotcom was arrested in an armed raid on his New Zealand home on charges of criminal copyright infringement in connection with his site Megaupload.

    Dotcom has had plenty of time to take in the indictment, and in the interview he gives several instances where the government is grabbing at straws to make the charges stick.

    One claim the government is making is that Dotcom personally posted copyrighted material on Megaupload to be shared, a direct form of copyright infringement. According to Dotcom, the song in question was posted as a private test for the new upload feature. The upload file was hidden and not intended for distribution. As a result, the song was never downloaded by the public.

    “The URL to this song had zero downloads. This was a ‘private link’ and it has never been published,” adds Dotcom, “According to the Department of Justice I am an infringer, and this is all they got? One song?”

    The government is claiming that Dotcom was actively attempting to prevent copyright holders from removing the offending material. The example they give is Warner Brothers at one point was unable to delete content through the abuse tool, having hit their limit. When Warner Bros. contacted Dotcom about the issue, he refused to raise the delete limit on their account.

    Dotcom says this is false, noting the direct delete feature is voluntary, as in, not a legal requirement. Warner Brothers was not denied. They were given a 100,000 max daily delete limit soon after the incident.

    Dotcom believes the indictment is full of holes, so why is he being targeted on such flimsy pretenses. Dotcom says he is the victim of a political game. “Mega has become a re-election pawn in the White House / MPAA affair.” adding what he says the consequences are of such a witch hunt. “The MPAA / White House corruption has weakened US technology leadership. Internet businesses, hosting, cloud, payment processors, ad networks, etc. are going to avoid the US. There is an opportunity for liberal countries to welcome those businesses with better laws. The loss of IT business & jobs in the US will substantially outweigh the inflated losses claimed by the MPAA & their billionaire club.”

    The Megaupload founder plans to fight the charges till the end, and is confident he will prevail. “We did nothing wrong. Watch out for our first motion in response to the MPAA-sponsored Department of Justice indictment. It will be enlightening and maybe entertaining.”

  • Feds Indict Former Online Gambling Billionaire

    On Tuesday, Federal prosecutors in Baltimore released an indictment against Calvin Ayre, the Canadian founder of Bodog, one of the biggest gambling sites on the interent. Ayre is accused of running an illegal gambling business and conspiring to commit money laundering, and for years was able to elude U.S. law enforcement, prompting Forbes to write a story on him called “Catch Me If You Can.”

    Calvin Ayre

    Rod Rosenstein, the U.S attorney in Baltimore, filed a six page indictment, alleging that Ayre, along with three other Canadians, James Philip, David Ferguson and Derrick Maloney ran an illegal gambling business from 2005 to 2012, which was in violation of Maryland law. Money was also allegedly laundered in Switzerland, England, Malta and Canada. In a statement, Rosenstein said “sports betting is illegal in Maryland, and federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,” adding that “gambling prohibitions are exacerbated when the enterprises operate over the Internet without regulation.” Prosecutors also allege that Ayre moved $100 million in gambling winnings to gamblers, using payment processors like JBL Services and ZipPayments.

    Ayre claims to be retired, and that his Bodog brand has been transferred to the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, located in the Kahnawake territory near Montreal. Ayre’s website describes him as being an “industry pioneer, megalomaniac, and adrenaline junkie.” Adding that, “in 1994 Calvin Ayre sold everything he owned and launched Bodog.com. During an unprecedented run of marketing/PR stunts, Calvin Ayre had the opportunity to be around more D-list celebrities than Dr. Drew – not to mention stuffing more 3rd world mouths than Live Aid.” Dang. Presently, the domestic version of the Ayre’s Bodog site is down, due to a seizure of its domain name by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Bodog’s other site, bodog.eu, is also blocked from North American access, prompting users to visit bovada.lv, which allows access.

    Ayre’s comment on the matter he’d posted to his website:

    These documents were filed with Forbes magazine before they were filed anywhere else and were drafted with the consumption of the media as a primary objective. We will all look at this and discuss the future with our advisors, but it will not stop my many business interests globally that are unrelated to anything in the U.S. and it will not stop my many charity projects through my foundation.

  • Stratfor Email Leaks Reveal U.S. Plans To Indict Wikileaks Founder

    As you are all aware of by now, Wikileaks made a huge stink over the weekend by releasing 5GB of internal emails from Stratfor, a global intelligence company. Some of those emails concern Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange.

    The Sydney Morning Herald, who secured the emails from Wikileaks, reports that there was a specific email that points to the U.S. wanting to bring charges against Assange. The email, sent by Stratfor VP of Intelligence Fred Burton, said that the company acquired “a sealed indictment on Assange.”

    Burton would have access to such government files as he was the former deputy chief of the counter-terrorim division of the U.S. State Department’s diplomatic security service.

    What’s even more interesting is that the last major release from Wikileaks spurred a lot of different opinions at Stratfor. One of them detailed an Australian Stratfor employee going by the name of Chris Farnham saying that Assange should have his Australian citizenship revoked for leaking Australian national interests.

    What’s even more interesting is that Farnham says there’s nothing to the claims that Assange sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. He says that a close family friend knows one of the women involved in the case and they said that it’s just “prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves.”

    Some people within Stratfor had a different outlook on the actions of Wikileaks. Stratfor’s Director of Analysis, Reva Bhalla, had this to say:

    ‘WikiLeaks itself may struggle to survive but the idea that’s put out there, that anyone with the bandwidth and servers to support such a system can act as a prime outlet of leaks. [People] are obsessed with this kind of stuff. The idea behind it won’t die.”

    It remains to be seen if Stratfor still feels the same after they had internal emails leaked, but a statement from the company after the leaks was less than positive.

    As more and more information emerges from The Global Intelligence Files, there are sure to be some really interesting stories. We’ll keep you updated on whatever comes out of all of this.