Free Republic

The chair of the Minnesota Freedom Fund board was arrested late last month for fentanyl possession. The Bloomington Police Department confirmed with Alpha News that Valentina McKenzie was arrested Aug. 31 at 78th Street East and 12th Avenue East at 10:35 p.m. “She was booked and released from our jail pending out of custody charges,” said Deputy Chief Kimberly Clauson. Police submitted a request for charges Sept. 1 to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for felony fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance-fentanyl and misdemeanor charges of possessing an open package of marijuana in a motor vehicle, Clauson said. No charges...

Grandson arrested with meth and needs rescuing from the county jail? Husband pulled over for driving under the influence and held downtown? Former president accused of subverting American democracy in a sprawling conspiracy with 18 co-defendants who tried to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia? Better call Shaw. A diverse clientele is all in a day's work for Charles Shaw, a Georgia bondsman of 23 years' standing and the first person in history to put up guarantees for the release of a former president from jail. He said accepting the job to bail out Donald Trump in...

Soros-backed prosecutor George Gascón has called cash bail 'unjust' and 'unsafe' A Los Angeles woman accused of participating in a viral flash mob robbery was released on cashless bail just one day before the heist, court records show, reflecting the city's struggle to fight crime under liberal prosecutor George Gascón. Los Angeles police last week arrested Ziona Janea Famoso for her role in a viral August 12 smash-and-grab robbery at a Nordstrom department store, where dozens of masked thieves destroyed displays and left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen goods. If not for the city's cashless bail policy,...

Former United States President Donald Trump will arrive this Thursday at the Fulton County Jail in the state of Georgia, where he will turn himself in and be released on $200,000 bail, as part of the case against him in the 2020 election interference case. Tonight (Tuesday), Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney, Fani Willis... The arrest will take place hours after the first debate of the Republican Party candidates for the presidential elections, but Trump,...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — The man who was accused of attacking former Congressman Lee Zeldin at a campaign stop is scheduled in court Wednesday morning for a status conference. David Jakubonis, a war veteran, confronted Zeldin at the VFW in Perinton back in July 2022. He then climbed onto the stage and lunged at Zeldin with a keychain before being restrained. He was arrested a few days later.

Sheriffs in southern Illinois say they are bracing for more crime and more victims that result from the end of cash bail across the state. "Folks who live here are extremely concerned," Franklin County Sheriff Kyle Bacon told Fox News. "It's an experiment on the backs of victims of crime. I have serious concerns and so do the people that live here." On Tuesday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of eliminating the state's cash bail system. The ruling takes effect Sept. 18, making Illinois the first state to fully abolish cash bail.

Illinois is set to become the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a landmark criminal justice reform law did not violate the state’s constitution.

The Illinois Supreme Court will announce its opinion in the Rowe v. Raoul (SAFE-T Act) case next week. The Illinois Supreme Court made the announcement on Twitter that an opinion will be posted on its website around 9 a.m. on Tuesday, July 18. Illinois was set to abolish cash bail on January 1, 2023 in accordance with the pretrial fairness portion of the SAFE-T Act. However, over 60 state attorneys and sheriffs had other plans and filed a lawsuit to block the law from taking effect. The Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the plan back...

CHICAGO — Prosecutors yesterday charged Nicolas Ramirez, 20, with carjacking a woman at gunpoint in Little Village on Tuesday. Ramirez was on bail for another armed carjacking case and on probation for a felony gun case at the time. And, for good measure, he had warrants out on both cases because he stopped showing up for his court dates. When we report stories like the one you’re about to read, people often ask us, “How in the world was that person out on the streets?” It depends. But, in the case of Nicolas Ramirez, the answer is Cook County Judge...

39-year-old Marlon Scott Kautz of Atlanta, 30-year-old Savannah Patterson of Savannah, and 42-year-old Adele Maclean of Atlanta were arrested and charged with money laundering and charity fraud. On Tuesday, three people connected to the violent takeover of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center’s future site were arrested and charged with money laundering and charity fraud. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced that alongside the Atlanta Police Department, the three were arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into the criminal acts undertaken at the site. . . . Kautz, Patterson and Maclean all work for the nonprofit the Atlanta Solidarity...

An ex-con with about 100 prior arrests was charged with a hate crime this week for allegedly spray-painting an anti-Asian slur on a Queens liquor store, cops said. Angel Mario, 43, was arrested Tuesday and hit with two counts of criminal mischief – one as a hate crime – as well as with raps of making graffiti and aggravated harassment in connection to the April 19 vandalism, authorities said. Mario got off an A train at the Far Rockaway–Mott Avenue station around 10:45 p.m. and walked to a bus stop at the corner of Mott Avenue and Beach Channel Drive,...

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón reportedly has a 10,000-case backlog, causing further frustration among prosecutors as a local judge reinstated a “no cash bail” policy for non-violent offenses. The reports about the criminal case backlog come from whistleblowers, who spoke to the New York Post: Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is an “authoritarian” and “toxic” manager whose ultra-woke approach has led scores of prosecutors to quit and 10,000 cases to pile up, sources tell The Post. … One former LA prosecutor said Gascón’s policies have eroded trust with the public the office serves, through generous plea...

Jackie Rahm Little, 36, was federally charged over the week in fires at two Minneapolis mosques. MINNEAPOLIS — The man who was federally charged over the weekend in fires set at two Minneapolis mosques was previously bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund, court records show. Jackie Rahm Little, 36, was apprehended Saturday night in Mankato by the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office and taken into federal custody. In addition to setting fires at the Masjid Omar Islamic Center and Mercy Islamic Center last month, Little was also identified as the suspect who vandalized the Minneapolis district office of U.S....

What Does Guo Wengui (Miles Guo) Know? Chinese Whistleblower, Mr. Miles Guo knows too much. He can name names of those within the U.S. Justice Department who have colluded with the corrupt Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In fact, Guo has key information Congress must have in its fight to rid the DOJ of CCP infiltration and corruption. It is because of what he knows that Guo is presently sitting in a federal gulag, denied bail and denied due process. Simply put, Miles Guo is a threat to the criminally treasonous among us—a threat to be neutralized at all costs.

In my comments at Brookings on bail I pointed out that: In New York City (2008-2013) most of the people arrested had prior interactions with the criminal justice system. On average, each arrested person had 3.2 prior felony arrests and 5 prior misdemeanor arrests—convictions were considerably fewer than arrests, which suggests to me that the system isn’t convicting enough people. Interpretations may differ, but, in any case, the typical arrested person has been arrested multiple times previously. …I think most Americans would be surprised and upset to learn that by far the majority of the arrestees are released prior to...

The suspect captured on shocking video wearing a jacket with the letters FDNY emblazoned on the back while shooting and killing another man execution-style in a New York City smoke shop was arrested Tuesday. Police say the same man also murdered a 19-year-old just 30 hours prior and was out on bail for allegedly opening fire toward cops two years ago. Messiah Nantwi, 21, was arrested and charged in the murder of 36-year-old Brandon Brunson in Sunday's brazen Harlem smoke shop slaying, as well as the murder of 19-year-old Jaylen Duncan, who was fatally shot in the head near Madison...

For all the death, misery and havoc that COVID-19 inflicted during its first three years, the pandemic did bring one short-lived benefit to the criminal justice system, at least in Los Angeles County. It led judges to eliminate money bail for many people accused of low-level crimes. L.A.’s brief period of more perfect justice ended last year when the Los Angeles Superior Court rescinded its emergency zero-dollar bail policy. Last November, several people who were stuck in jail because they couldn’t pay bail, along with some L.A. County taxpayers who foot the bill for the costly and wasteful practice of...

... GOP lawmakers in other states also are scrambling to make it harder for defendants to get out of jail before trial after branding themselves as tough on crime in the 2022 midterm elections. Their efforts have led to a fierce fight with Democrats over public safety and the rights of criminal defendants. Recent Democratic overhaul measures in states such as Illinois and New York have sought to eliminate cash bail and lessen pretrial detention on the premise they do more harm than good, especially to marginalized groups. But Republican lawmakers in at least 14 states have introduced some 20...

Shocking video footage captures the moment a young mob violently trashed a Chinese restaurant in Queens over the weekend, overturning tables and breaking chairs as terrified staff and customers helplessly looked on. The heinous hooligans left Fish Village in College Point in shambles Saturday, according to a video posted on Twitter by community activist Yiatin Chu. “We’ve fallen so low that there’s no expectation of consequences for this horrific attack on private property,” Chu, president of Asian Wave Alliance and a co-founder of PLACE NYC, wrote in the post. “This video is going viral on WeChat. Fish Village, a restaurant...

Usually, when we talk about cashless bail, we're talking about suspects who go on to commit murders after they're released — not the ones already accused of killing one innocent bystander and shooting six other people (including a child) in the downtown area of a major city during rush hour. But not in Seattle, where it looks like the judges let everyone out . Note that this is one case where the prosecutor at least tried to keep the accused perp in jail, which is more than you can say for a lot of jurisdictions nowadays : A King County...