March 21, 2001 – Catrena Renee Jones abducted her 7-year-old biological daughter from Mount Calvary Baptist Church in West Palm Beach. Around 1:50 p.m. on Sunday, West Palm Beach police responded to a call from the church of a possible abduction. According to the police report, officers arrived to find Williams and Florie McFarlane, Williams’ grandmother, who had taken Ricarra to church Sunday morning.
McFarlane said Ricarra had been speaking to a woman who identified herself to church employees as her “auntie,” according to the report.
By the time the church services began, Jones managed to escape with Ricarra, triggering a police search notification of the Florida Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse. A missing child alert was issued for Ricarra, Carol Frederick, spokeswoman for the clearinghouse and Florida Department of Law Enforcement said on Monday.
The girl was found around 8 p.m. unharmed in Lake Park with Jones, according to the police report. Jones was being held late Monday in lieu of $100,000 bail at the Est Palm Beach County Jail.
Posted By rodneypires on March 26, 2011
Category: Child Abductions
Tags: Child Abductions
March 25, 2011 – SAN FERNANDO, Calif.—A jury has convicted a Los Angeles parolee of attempted murder for the 2008 church carnival shootings of his son’s mother and a festival volunteer.
Prosecutors say 36-year-old Fernando Diaz, who was in a bitter custody battle with his ex-girlfriend, showed up at the St. John Baptist de la Salle Church fundraiser in suburban Granada Hills and shot his ex-girlfriend as she was setting up a carnival booth.
She was wounded in the elbow and two volunteers had bullet wounds.
Five parents, including off-duty police officers, tackled and disarmed Diaz.
A jury on Thursday convicted Diaz on two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a firearm and one count of being a felon with a firearm. He was acquitted of a third attempted murder count.
Posted By rodneypires on March 26, 2011
Category: Church Murder, Church Shootings
Tags: Church Shootings
March 25, 2011 – The ex-bookkeeper of a California church has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for stealing $129,000.
Orange County prosecutors originally charged 37-year-old Elyse Marie Kennedy with 154 felony counts of forgery with sentencing enhancements for embezzling money from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin. If convicted at trial, she faced up to 107 years in prison.
It wasn’t a sophisticated crime: She wrote 154 checks to herself.
In a plea deal Thursday, the Santa Ana woman pleaded guilty to two felony counts of forgery. She was sentenced to two years, eight months in prison. A restitution hearing is set for June 24.
Posted By rodneypires on March 26, 2011
Category: Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault
Tags: Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault
March 25, 2011 – Portland Oregon – The Pacific Northwest chapter of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166 million to settle more than 500 child sexual abuse claims against priests in five states, attorneys said on Friday.
The victims, most of them Native Americans from remote Alaska Native villages or Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest, were sexually or psychologically abused as children by Jesuit missionaries in those states in the 1940s through the 1990s, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said.
Posted By rodneypires on March 26, 2011
Category: Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault
Tags: Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault
March 25, 2011 – MONTGOMERY, AL – The arrest report at the Montgomery Police Department shows 47-year-old Barry Cook was employed at Christian Life Church on Monticello Drive off the Eastern Boulevard.
The church website listed Cook as an instructor. Church leaders had no comment but we’re told Mr. Cook was fired this week.
Barry Cook remains in the Montgomery County Detention Center. Cook faces charges of sexual torture and aggravated child abuse.
Police say if and when Cook makes bond he will also face a third degree domestic violence charge.
Cook’s bonds total $500,000.
Posted By rodneypires on March 26, 2011
Category: Sex Crimes, Sexual Assault
Tags: Sex Crimes
March 18, 2011 – Texas – A youth worker at a Benbrook church has been charged with distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, James T. Jacks, announced today.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton this morning ordered Derek M. Ripley, 27, of Fort Worth detained pending further court proceedings. Ripley has been in custody since his arrest last Thursday.
According to testimony at a detention hearing this morning as well as information contained in an affidavit, Ripley volunteered his time working with the youth at Trinity Chapel Church in Benbrook. Last November, an undercover FBI agent used a computer to discover several files filled with images of child pornography. Further investigation revealed that the person connected to those files was Ripley.
If convicted, Ripley faces a statutory sentence of five to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release, officials said.
Posted By rodneypires on March 21, 2011
Category: Child Pornography
Tags: Child Pornography
March 18, 2011 – CLEVELAND, Ohio — The 34-year-old Cleveland man who stole copper from nearly a dozen churches and Lakewood High School will be sentenced April 6.
James Dina pleaded guilty Wednesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court to burglary, vandalism, disrupting a public service, 16 counts of breaking and entering and five counts of theft.
Over the last five months of last year, Dina stole copper downspouts in Lakewood from the Lakewood Congregational Church at 1375 West Clifton Blvd., Gethsemane Lutheran Church at 14560 Madison Ave., Lakewood United Methodist Church at 15700 Detroit Ave., St. James Catholic Church at 17514 Detroit Ave., Faith Lutheran Church at 16511 Hilliard Road, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at 18001 Detroit Ave. and Lakewood High School on Franklin Boulevard.
He also stole copper downspouts from St. Paul Lutheran Church on East Bagley Road in Berea, and Our Lady of Angels at 3644 Rocky River Dr., Monastery of Poor Clares at 3501 Rocky River Dr., Sisters of St. Joseph at 3430 Rocky River Dr., and the Marriott Hotel at 4277 West 150th St. in Cleveland.
And he stole brass fittings for water lines from Homewood Suites by Hilton and the Hampton Inn on Enterprise Parkway and Springhill Suites by Marriott at 30100 Aurora Road in Solon.
Posted By rodneypires on March 21, 2011
Category: Church Theft
Tags: Church Theft
March 18, 2011 -
HOPKINTON, R.I. —
Vandals have caused an estimated $50,000 in damage to a Hopkinton church.
The destruction at the Babcock Presbyterian Church was discovered just after 5 a.m. on Thursday by police and firefighters responding to call from a passer-by who heard church alarms going off.
The vandals tipped over an organ and a new $8,000 piano, pushed over a baptismal font, sprayed fire extinguishers, destroyed furniture and threw sheet music and other papers all over the church. Wooden crosses and pictures were torn from walls.
Pastor Marilyn McNaughton called the mess an act of “extreme vandalism.” She said the culprits caused damage to every room in the church.
The 150-year-old congregation in the town’s Ashaway section has about 75 members.
Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying the vandals.
Posted By rodneypires on March 21, 2011
Category: Church Vandalism
Tags: Church Vandalism
March 18, 2011 -Kingsland Georgia police have charged two men with burglarizing three churches in two days.
Edward Stanley Gilbert, 20, and Lloyd Odis Sams, 19, both of Kingsland, each face three counts of felony burglary, said Lt. Todd Tetterton, police department spokesman.
When arrested, the suspects had been free on bail on charges stemming from another theft case, Tetterton said.
Both remained in custody at the Camden County jail on Thursday.
Gilbert and Sams are charged with stealing a variety of items including canned food, prepackaged juice drinks, hot chocolate mix, a portable clock radio and a small lock box-style safe after breaking into churches.
Kingsland patrol officers on duty in the area developed information Wednesday that led detective Brian Aligood to identify Gilbert and Sams as possible suspects in the break-ins. Aligood subsequently interviewed the men at their home.
After arresting the men, Aligood recovered several items including a lock box, radio and a cart the owners identified as items taken from the churches, Tetterton said.
Posted By rodneypires on March 21, 2011
Category: Church Burglary, Church Theft
Tags: Church Burglary, Church Theft
March 21 -
A federal court jury in Massachusetts will be hearing opening arguments in the trial of a man charged with burning down a predominantly black church in Springfield because he was upset that Obama was elected president.
Opening arguments are set for Monday in the trial of Michael Jacques at U.S. District Court in Springfield.
Jacques was among three white men charged with burning down the Macedonia Church of God in Christ just hours after Obama was elected in November 2008. The under-construction church was destroyed, but a new building is nearing completion.
The other defendants pleaded guilty. Jacques could face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy against civil rights, damage to religious property and other charges. His lawyer says he’s innocent.
Michael Jacques
Posted By rodneypires on March 21, 2011
Category: Church Arson
Tags: Church Arson
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