News Blog

Marin Man, 76, Sentenced to Eight Years for Possession of Child Pornography

Donald Tosti was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution for possessing child pornography.

Tosti was convicted on Sept. 14, 2011, on two charges of possessing child pornography. During the trial, evidence showed that Tosti was found to possess child pornography after taking his computer to CompUSA for repair. A search of Tosti’s home and office revealed a large collection of child pornography, including depictions of the rape of very young children. In sentencing Tosti, United States District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White emphasized the size of his collection and the graphic and extreme nature of the child pornography images as aggravating factors in imposing his sentence.

The prosecution is the result of a four-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of the San Rafael Police Department.

Read more | Crimes Against Children

FBI Launches Billboard Campaign for Fugitive Couple

Rick Devan Hendrix and Sarah Candace Deswert-Hendrix.

The Portland FBI is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Rick Devan Hendrix, 56, and Sarah Candace Deswert-Hendrix, 30, who are wanted in connection with an alleged Internet fraud scheme.

Hendrix and Deswert face mail and wire fraud charges for allegedly taking pictures of items in stores, posting the items for sale on an Internet auction site, and collecting money from bidders. Victims in Oregon, Washington, and California suffered more than $300,000 in losses.

The FBI, in conjunction with Clear Channel Outdoor, has placed information about the case on a new electronic billboard in Washington County. Forty-seven fugitives have been captured with the aid of electronic billboards since the initiative began in 2007. In the first year alone, billboards helped lead to the capture of 14 fugitives.

Read more | More about FBI billboards

Two Japanese Companies, Four Execs Guilty in Automobile Parts Bid-Rigging and Price-Fixing Conspiracies

On January 30, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced that two Japanese suppliers of automotive electrical components agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $548 million in criminal fines for their role in multiple price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracies in the sale of parts to car makers in the United States. Four executives, all Japanese nationals, also agreed to plead guilty and serve prison time in this country.

One of the companies engaged in three separate conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices of automobile wire harnesses, instrument panel clusters, and fuel sends, while the other engaged in conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices of electronic control units and heater control panels. All of these parts are essential to the wiring, circuit boards, gauges, and fuel tanks of automobiles.

According to FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena, “This criminal activity has a significant impact on automotive manufacturers in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe and had been occurring for at least a decade.” Acting Assistant Attorney General Sharis Pozen said that the subjects “carried out the conspiracies by agreeing during meetings and conversations to allocate the supply of the products on a model-by-model basis and to coordinate price adjustments requested by automobile manufacturers in the U.S. and elsewhere.”

The case—worked by the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, the Department of Justice’s National Criminal Enforcement Section of its Antitrust Division, and the FBI’s International Corruption Unit—was coordinated with international antitrust partners in Japan, the European Union, and Canada. This is the second round of charges in an ongoing international cartel investigation of price fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry.

Press release

California Fugitive Returned to U.S. After Tip Leads to Capture in Belize

A fugitive wanted for a June 2010 homicide in the city of Palmdale was returned to the U.S. yesterday following her capture in Belize. Larene Eleanor Austin, 29, allegedly murdered Lanell Barsock in 2010 and attempted to frame the victim’s boyfriend for the murder.

When Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives determined that Austin had fled the state of California, detectives requested assistance from the Los Angeles Fugitive Task Force, and publicized the case on the television program, America’s Most Wanted.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives received a tip after the television program aired a story about the murder over the 2011 Christmas holiday. The tip indicated Austin was living in the Central American country of Belize. After further investigation, Sheriff’s detectives determined the tip was credible and shared it with members of the FBI’s Fugitive Task Force in Los Angeles.

The Fugitive Task Force contacted the FBI’s Legal Attaché in San Salvador, which covers Belize and other Central American countries, to further investigate the tip. Officers with the Belize Police Department working with FBI agents in Central America arrested Austin without incident.

Austin was expelled yesterday from Belize and was flown to Houston, Texas, under the escort of FBI agents assigned to the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador.

Read more | FBI Most Wanted

FBI Offers $20,000 Reward in North Carolina Armored Car Robbery

The FBI Charlotte Division is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the identification and successful prosecution of the person responsible for robbing an armored car and shooting a Loomis employee outside an ATM in Charlotte, N.C., on January 23.

Witnesses describe the robber as a black male, 15-25 years old, with a small build. He was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt, black t-shirt, grey sweatpants, black Nike shoes with a white swoosh, and a baseball cap with a silver sticker on the brim. He had a white glove on his right hand; it can be seen in surveillance video as he runs away with a gun in his hand.

Press release | Wanted poster

Four Connecticut Police Officers Charged with Civil Rights Offenses

New York FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk, center, is joined by U.S. Attorney David B. Fein, left, and Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez at a press conference in Bridgeport.

A federal grand jury in Bridgeport indicted four East Haven Police officers on charges of conspiring to violate, and violating, the civil rights of members of the East Haven community. It is alleged that unreasonable force was used when victims were unarmed, neither resisting nor interfering with the police, but rather securely under the control of the police or otherwise cooperative. In some cases, the victims were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs when officers assaulted them.

Sgt. John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding, and Jason Zullo were arrested this morning without incident. According to allegations contained in the indictment, from approximately 2007 through 2011, Miller, Cari, Spaulding, and Zullo, while acting under color of law, conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate various members of the East Haven community in violation of their constitutional rights.

The case is being investigated by the Civil Rights Squad of the FBI’s New York Field Office. New York FBI Special Operation teams, including its SWAT Team, assisted in today’s arrests.

“The four police officers charged today allegedly formed a cancerous cadre that routinely deprived East Haven residents of their civil rights,” said New York FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk. “The public should not need protection from those sworn to protect and serve. In simple terms, these defendants behaved like bullies with badges.”

Read more | More on Civil Rights

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$100,000 Reward for Fugitive Robert William Fisher

Robert William Fisher is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April of 2001.

Fisher is physically fit and is an avid outdoorsman, hunter, and fisherman. He has a noticeable gold crown on his upper left first bicuspid tooth. He may walk with an exaggerated erect posture and his chest pushed out due to a lower back injury. Fisher is known to chew tobacco heavily. He has ties to New Mexico and Florida. Fisher is believed to be in possession of several weapons, including a high-powered rifle.

An undated video shows him walking with a small child. Fisher has been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 2002, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading directly to his arrest.

$10 Million Returned to Victims of Public Corruption Scheme

The U.S. Attorney in Rochester, New York, announced today that more than $10 million in forfeited property has been returned to the victims of one of the largest public corruption cases ever prosecuted in the Western District of New York.

Those receiving restitution include the Eastman Kodak Company, the Town of Greece, IBM, ITT Industries, Inc., RG&E, and Global Crossing. The companies and town were all victims of real property tax appraisal and assessment schemes spearheaded by John Nicolo, a property appraiser.

In 2005, Nicolo and othe perpetrators schemed victims out of millions of dollars by artificially inflating tax assessments on properties they owned, and then causing John Nicolo to be hired by the companies in an effort to reduce the resulting tax assessments.

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Elizabeth Short Disappeared 65 Years Ago Today in Unsolved ‘Black Dahlia’ Case

Los Angeles Police Department bulletin in the “Black Dahlia” case. | View larger version

Elizabeth Ann Short was last seen 65 years ago today, January 9, 1947. Less than a week later, a brutally mutilated female corpse was found in Los Angeles.

Short—dubbed the “Black Dahlia” by the press for her rumored penchant for sheer black clothes and for a movie at that time—was found sliced clean in half at the waist by a mother walking her child in an L.A. neighborhood just before 11 a.m. on January 15, 1947. The body was just a few feet from the sidewalk and posed in the grass in such a way that the woman reportedly thought it was a mannequin at first. Despite the extensive mutilation and cuts on the body, there wasn’t a drop of blood at the scene, indicating Short had been killed elsewhere. An extensive manhunt followed, but the killer has never been identified.

Through fingerprints, the FBI identified the aspiring actress. FBI files detail the FBI’s assistance to the Los Angeles Police Department, which investigated the murder, between 1947 and 1948.

View the files | Background

Revised Rape Definition Announced for Uniform Crime Reporting Program

Attorney General Holder announced a revised definition of rape within the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program that was recommended by the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division’s Advisory Policy Board. The new and broader definition will allow law enforcement agencies to report more complete rape offense data throughout the UCR program to ensure all victims of this crime can be accounted for.

CJIS Assistant Director David Cuthbertson said that the new definition—which was approved by FBI Director Robert Mueller—“reflects the vast majority of state rape statutes,” and that the FBI “is confident that the number of victims of this heinous crime will be more accurately reflected in national crime statistics.” 

As a result of the revised definition, the FBI expects to see an increase in reported rape offense data once the law enforcement community makes the necessary reporting changes to collect revised rape statistics. Full implementation of this change in reporting will occur as law enforcement resources allow.

The CJIS Advisory Policy Board, made up of executives from all facets of law enforcement, is responsible for reviewing appropriate policy, technical, and operational issues related to CJIS programs and for making appropriate recommendations to the FBI Director.

Department of Justice press release | FBI, This Week podcast