Free Republic

An İstanbul high criminal court on Thursday gave prison sentences ranging from 25 months to seven years, six months to 25 journalists on terror charges. The journalists, some of whom used to work for media outlets affiliated with the Gülen movement, are alleged to be followers of the movement, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The movement strongly denies any involvement. There were 29 defendants in the trial, 19 of whom were in pretrial detention.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina read his statement, contempt dripping from her voice, before she glares at him, dangles the page, and drops it in disgust. “I just signed your death warrant,” she crowed later in sentencing him to 40-175 years.

In May 2008, more than 500 federal immigration agents raided the plant and arrested hundreds of undocumented workers. The raid resulted in the company declaring bankruptcy. Rubashkin was arrested a short time later and charged with bank fraud. And this is where things went terribly wrong. The sentence for bank fraud depends on the amount of the loss to creditors. In this case, the prosecution deliberately increased the amount of the loss — and thus the length of Rubashkin’s sentence.

US rabbinical organization The Coalition for Jewish Values welcomed news that US President Donald Trump had commuted the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, former head of the country’s largest kosher meat-processing company, who had been sentenced to 27 years in prison for fraud and money laundering. snip Rubashkin is a 57-year-old father of 10 children. He previously ran the Iowa headquarters of a family business that was the country’s largest kosher meat-processing company. In 2009, he was convicted of bank fraud and later sentenced to 27 years in prison. He was charged with defaulting on loans after his funds were frozen...

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Bobby Pitts was sentenced Friday to 18 months in jail for his role in the largest fraud scheme to ever plague the service. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino scolded Pitts on Friday and told him he had “betrayed the Navy and betrayed the country,” the Associated Press reports. “Pitts deliberately and methodically undermined government operations and in doing so, diverted his allegiance from his country and colleagues to a foreign defense contractor, and for that, he is paying a high price,” U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman said. Singapore-based defense contractor Leonard Francis perpetrated the fraud scheme, termed Fat...

An Arab who fired a slingshot at Jews marching in Jerusalem's Old City and caused blindness in the eye of one of his victims will not sit a single day in prison, according to the verdict of Judge Avital Molad of the Juvenile Magistrates Court in Jerusalem. The incident took place five years ago....the Arabs had returned to the same place and began shooting marbles at the Jews with slingshots. One of the boys was hit by a marble in his eye, was sent to Hadassah Medical Center where he stayed for a few days and underwent surgery, almost completely...

62 year-old ‘Peace Mother’ sentenced to 8 years in Turkey 28 January 2017 10:26 Sultan Azboy, member of Peace Mothers Movement Sultan Azboy, a member of the ‘Peace Mothers’, has been sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison for allegedly being a member of an illegal organisation.Sultan Azboy reacted to the decision and said, “I stand for peace and they call me a terrorist. I didn’t take up arms against anyone. I didn’t shoot anyone. I am a peace mother. I am 62 years old and they have sentenced me just for participating in protests for peace. I will continue my...

A federal judge on Tuesday upheld Rod Blagojevich's 14-year prison sentence on corruption counts, setting aside pleas for leniency by the former Illinois governor's wife and daughters during his resentencing.

SANFORD – Sujatha Guduru, the Oviedo mother who fatally shot her 17-year-old daughter then tried to kill herself, refused to accept an act of mercy by prosecutors on Wednesday. They offered her a plea deal that would have reduced her sentence from life in prison to 30 years, but she rejected it. She would plead guilty, she said, only if she were allowed to spend the rest of her life in prison.

Ramon Ochoa probably isn’t laughing now. Ochoa, who had previously served about six years for firearms possession by a felon, got into trouble with his probation officer, which resulted in Ochoa being back inside a Fresno courtroom. Ochoa’s mouth got him into more hot water when he laughed at O’Neill’s sentence, saying, “Anything else?” “Well, you just talked yourself into more time,” O’Neill replied. The judge doubled Ochoa’s sentence to two years for laughing at the court.

A California judge has reduced a child rapist's mandatory 25-year sentence down to only 10 - saying anything longer would be 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly told an Orange County jury that 20-year-old Kevin Jonas Rojano-Nieto 'did not intend to harm' the three-year-old girl he raped at his family home in June. The judge said that he was sure that although Rojano-Nieto sodomized the girl and covered her mouth so she couldn't scream out, 'there was no violence or callous disregard for the victim's well-being'.

In a stunning blow to the federal government’s case against the Reese family in the New Deal case, Judge Robert Brack imposed the following sentence: Time Served3 years supervised release$100 fine per count of convictionRandom drug testingDNA samplesRefrain from alcohol use or possession of alcoholRandom home/vehicle searchNo gun ownership  He informed them they have the right to appeal his sentence.The government had originally sought the maximum sentence of five years each for Rick and Terri Reese, plus an additional few years for testifying in their own defense at trial, which was considered by the government to be “obstruction of justice”.  The government...

A Chicago man was sentenced Friday to 160 years in prison for fatally stabbing a 14-year-old girl nearly three years ago after he broke into her west suburban home. John Wilson Jr., 41, was charged with murder, armed robbery and home invasion in the death of Kelli O'Laughlin, of Indian Head Park. In handing out the maximum sentence, Judge John J. Hynes called the murder “a crime that shocked the conscience of the community.”

Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza spoke out tonight about his five-year probation and eight-month sentence to a community confinement center on Fox News. D’Souza told Megyn Kelly, “My faith in an independent judiciary is affirmed.” D’Souza was indicted in January for campaign finance, and pled guilty in May. D’Souza had suggested on multiple occasions that he was targeted for his criticisms of President Obama, a charge prosecutors strongly denied. D’Souza repeatedly said in his interview tonight that there’s been an “all-out attempt to put me away,” and while he didn’t directly say it was the Obama administration, he did note there’s...

In a decision likely to be framed by conservative media as a vindictive abuse of power, filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in a confinement center and five years probation after pleading in May that he was guilty of violating campaign finance laws. D'Souza's movies, America this year and two years earlier, 2016: Obama's America, are critical of the left — and in the case of the first one, President Barack Obama — and they are among the most successful political documentaries in history. D'Souza was indicted in January after he promised his then-fiancee and his former...

The man who murdered three members of a Hoffman Estates family and seriously wounded another in a 2009 knife attack was sentenced today to three life sentences without parole plus an additional 60 years. D’Andre Howard, 26, showed no emotion as Cook County Judge Ellen Mandeltort delivered the sentence in a crowded Rolling Meadows courtroom.

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a one-month sentence that was widely condemned as too lenient for a former high school teacher convicted of raping a 14-year-old student. The court ordered a new judge to re-sentence defendant Stacey Dean Rambold, who has been free since completing the previous term last fall. Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said that according to state sentencing laws, the decision means Rambold must serve a minimum of two years in prison. The high court's decision cited in part the actions of District Judge G. Todd Baugh, of Billings, who suggested the young victim shared...

"Judge Jean Boyd again decided to give no jail time for Ethan Couch, defense attorney Reagan Wynn and prosecutors told reporters after the hearing, which was closed to the public. Prosecutors had asked Boyd to sentence him to 20 years in state custody on charges related to two people who were severely injured."

Jodi Arias was convicted of murder, but still awaits a sentence. So far, Arizona taxpayers have covered $2.1 million in legal fees for the Jodi Arias legal team and other costs associated with her case.

A teenager pled guilty today to the August 2012 slaying of a Wheaton volleyball standout in St. Louis and was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years, prosecutors said. Keith Esters, 19, pled guilty to second-degree murder in the killing Aug. 18 2012 of Megan Boken, 23, in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Steve Ohmer sentenced Eseters to life in prison--under Missouri law, 30 years in prison, of which Esters will have to serve at least 85 percent--plus another 20 years.