4 alleged MS-13 gang members charged in connection with murder

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LAS VEGAS – Four alleged MS-13 gang members were charged Tuesday in connection with the kidnapping and murder of a rival gang member whose body was found on federal property in southern Nevada.

The case is the result of a joint investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), FBI, and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, with assistance from DEA.

Josue Diaz-Orellana, 22, Luis Reyes-Castillo, a/k/a “Molesto,” 24, David Perez-Manchame, a/k/a “Herbi” and “Walter Melendez,” 19, and Miguel Torres-Escobar, 20, are charged with assault with intent to commit murder, kidnapping, and discharging a firearm during, and in relation to a crime of violence.

According to court documents, on January 21, 2018, Diaz-Orellana, Reyes-Castillo, Perez-Manchame, and Torres-Escobar, kidnapped and murdered Arquimidez Sandavol-Martinez. His body was discovered February 2 on federal property on East Lake Mead Boulevard, near mile marker 12, in rural Clark County, Nev. Examination of the crime scene indicated that Sandoval-Martinez had been bound and had made some effort to escape his captors before being shot and stabbed to death. Fired 9mm cartridge cases with “Blazer” and “FC” head-stamp markings on them were located within the crime scene.

During the course of the investigation, investigators learned that Sandoval-Martinez was last seen on January 21, at Club 2100, located at 2100 Fremont Street. Investigators obtained cell phone records that indicated Diaz-Orellana’s phone used cell towers near the club, heading eastbound along Lake Mead Boulevard – in the area where Sandavol-Martinez’s body was found. On March 2, law enforcement stopped Diaz-Orellana, who was in a vehicle with Reyes-Castillo, Perez-Manchame, and Torres-Escobar. A large butcher knife, a baseball hat with an apparent bloodstain on it, and three 9mm handguns were recovered in the vehicle.

Read More from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Here

A court once again orders a new trial for Adnan Syed, the subject of a ‘Serial’ podcast

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Adnan Syed, whose murder conviction was the focus of the first season on the extremely popular “Serial” podcast, has moved closer to a new trial. But it’s not necessarily a done deal.

On Thursday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, by a 2-1 ruling, ordered a new trial for Syed on all charges. It upheld a lower court that ruled similarly in 2016. Prosecutors have 30 days to appeal this decision to the state’s highest court or proceed with a new trial. For now, however, Syed and his lawyers are celebrating the win.
“He’s happy, he’s very happy,” lawyer C. Justin Brown told CNN. “He’s been waiting 18 years to hear this.” The Maryland attorney general’s office, which could appeal, is “reviewing today’s decision to determine next steps,” spokeswoman Raquel Coombs said.
Read More from CNN Here

Teen inmates stole manager’s cellphone and made more than 600 calls over two weeks before they were discovered by Wisconsin officials

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Inmates at Wisconsin’s scandal-ravaged teen prison made more than 600 phone calls on a cellphone they stole from a manager over two weeks before prison staff got on top of the situation, state records show.

Prisoners at Lincoln Hills School for Boys snatched the phone and its charger from the office of Rick Peterson on Oct. 19 but Peterson didn’t report it missing until Nov. 1, when a colleague told him guards had recovered a charger during a prison search.

Peterson told his bosses he rarely used the phone and hadn’t realized for two weeks it was missing. They recovered the phone the next day.

By then, the inmates had talked on the phone for more than 71 hours in 663 phone calls.

Read More from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Here

Busby man who beat, burned woman alive says cell phone entry warrants new trial

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Attorneys for the Busby man convicted of beating and burning a Crow Agency woman alive in 2016 filed a request Wednesday to reschedule his sentencing hearing for a later date as they consider new information about a cell phone that may contain a calendar entry relevant to the case. Dimarzio Sanchez, 20, was convicted at trial in U.S. District Court in Billings of first degree murder for the death of Roylynn RidesHorse.

RidesHorse was beaten, burned alive and left for dead in a field in Busby after meeting her three assailants at the nearby Kirby Saloon.  Attorneys for Sanchez have requested a new trial, arguing that a newly discovered cell phone may lead a jury to deliver a different verdict.

After the trial ended, a cousin of RidesHorse contacted the FBI about a screenshot of a calendar entry she saw posted on Facebook.

The calendar entry reads: “I should have told them the truth about what I did.. Now I’m full of regret not of what happen but I told them what somewhat happen I was apart of it.. I beat her in the car a bit I kicked her on the side of the head I helped find the gas can. I felt so alone when I found out they got caught.”

Federal investigators interviewed the person who posted the screenshot and retrieved an iPhone from her, according to court documents.

The current owner of the phone told the FBI she purchased it used about four or five months earlier and stumbled upon the calendar entry.

Read More from http://www.ktvq.com Here

Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones

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This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years’ worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received.

This experience has been shared by a number of other Facebook users who spoke with Ars, as well as independently by us—my own Facebook data archive, I found, contained call-log data for a certain Android device I used in 2015 and 2016, along with SMS and MMS message metadata.

In response to an email inquiry by Ars about this data gathering, a Facebook spokesperson replied, “The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy to find the people you want to connect with. So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a messaging or social app, it’s a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts.”

The spokesperson pointed out that contact uploading is optional and installation of the application explicitly requests permission to access contacts. And users can delete contact data from their profiles using a tool accessible via Web browser.

Read More from arstechnica.com Here