Cardi B has been getting a lot of criticism after a video surfaced of her saying she used to "drug and rob niggas" back when she was a stripper. She's fired back by saying she's going to write a book about her life.
(CTV News) -- Florida police have charged a couple and removed eight children from their custody after they “forgot” their toddler daughter at the park and reported her missing more than 14 hours later.
Police responded to reports of a young girl walking alone in a park near West Palm Beach on Saturday morning and shared a photo of the girl on social media.
“Does anyone know who the parents are of this beautiful little girl?” they wrote on Facebook and Twitter. “The child, possibly 2 years of age, was wearing a pink short-sleeve shirt, white & gold tutu and clear plastic shoes.”
The parents, Jolanda and Makenson Alexandre, told police they “did not realize” they left her at the park the night before around 7 p.m. when they reported her missing the next morning around 11:40 a.m.
The state child welfare agency were in possession of the child and later removed seven other children from the couple’s home.
“Both parents were arrested and each charged with one count of Neglect of Child,” the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Facebook.
CHICAGO (AP) — Attorneys for “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett said Tuesday that charges alleging he lied to police about a racist and homophobic attack have been dropped.
Smollett attorneys Tina Glandian and Patricia Brown Holmes said in a statement that Smollett’s record “has been wiped clean.” Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts related to making a false report that he was attacked by two men.
Among the questions that weren’t immediately answered was whether prosecutors still believe Smollett concocted the attack and whether there’s new evidence that altered their view of events. Typically, a minimum condition of dropping cases is some acceptance of responsibility. In a statement, the Cook County prosecutors’ office offered no detailed explanation.
“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the statement from spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.
Smollett had made a $10,000 bond payment to get out of jail after his arrest on the charges.
Police and prosecutors have said Smollett falsely reported to authorities that he was attacked around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 in downtown Chicago because he was unhappy with his pay on “Empire” and to promote his career.
Smollett, who is black and gay, plays the gay character Jamal Lyon on the hit Fox TV show that follows a black family as they navigate the ups and downs of the recording industry.
Smollett reported that he had been attacked on his way home from a sandwich shop. Smollett said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and looped a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. He asserted that he could see one of the men was white because he could see the skin around his eyes.
Police said Smollett hired two men, both of whom are black, to attack him. Police said Smollett paid the men $3,500.
The men are brothers Abimbola “Abel” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, and one of them had worked on “Empire.” An attorney for them has said the brothers agreed to help Smollett because of their friendship with him and the sense that he was helping their careers.
Police have also said that before the attack, Smollett sent a letter that threatened him to the Chicago studio where “Empire” is shot. The FBI, which is investigating that letter, has declined to comment on the investigation.
(Chicago Tribune) -- Michael Avenatti, the high-profile attorney and critic of President Donald Trump, was arrested Monday and charged by federal prosecutors with trying to extort Nike by threatening to level damaging allegations against the athletic apparel company unless it paid him and his client millions.
Simultaneously, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles filed separate charges accusing Avenatti of wire fraud and bank fraud, saying he for allegedly taking a client's settlement money and using it to pay expenses for Avenatti's coffee business. Avenatti allegedly concealed from the client what he had done with the money.
Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said Avenatti dressed up his alleged extortionate demands as legal negotiations, but that doing so violated the law.
"A suit and tie doesn't mask the fact that, at its core, this was an old-fashioned shakedown," said Berman. "When lawyers use their law licenses as weapons, as a guise to extort payments for themselves, they are no longer acting as attorneys, they are acting as criminals."
FBI officials said Avenatti was arrested in Manhattan on Monday as he arrived at an expected meeting with lawyers for Nike.
The charges mark the latest and most remarkable chapter in the strange public saga of the California lawyer who had represented Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress paid to keep quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about her alleged sexual tryst with Trump several years ago. Late last year, Avenatti mulled running for president before opting against it.
That case catapulted Avenatti to cable television news fame, but prosecutors now say he threatened to use that platform to commit a crime. Avenatti did not immediately respond to a phone call and text message seeking comment.
Authorities charge Avenatti threatened to hold a news conference on the eve of the NCAA college basketball tournament to reveal damaging allegations against Nike unless it paid his client $1.5 million and agreed to hire Avenatti and another lawyer for $15 million to $25 million to conduct an "internal investigation" into the purported allegations. Authorities did not disclose the identities of Avenatti's client or the other lawyer cited in the charging documents. A representative for Nike did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The charging document said that Avenatti proposed another alternative to hiring him to conduct an investigation - "a total payment of $22.5 million from Nike to resolve any claims (the client) might have and additionally to buy Avenatti's silence."
Shortly before the charges were unsealed Monday, Avenatti tweeted that he planned to hold a news conference Tuesday "to disclose a major high school/college basketball scandal perpetrated by @Nike that we have uncovered. This criminal conduct reaches the highest levels of Nike and involves some of the biggest names in college basketball."
According to a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent, Avenatti and the other lawyer - identified only as "co-conspirator 1" - held a contentious phone call last week with lawyers for Nike.
In that call, Avenatti allegedly told Nike that if their demands were not met, "I'll go take ten billion dollars off your client's market cap. . . . I'm not (expletive) around," according to the complaint.
Avenatti claimed his client "had evidence that one or more Nike employees had authorized and funded payments to the families of top high school basketball players and/or their families and attempted to conceal those payments," the complaint said. Nike's lawyers responded, it says, by calling federal prosecutors to report a potential crime in progress.
Federal agents arranged to secretly record subsequent conversations during which, they say, Avenatti demanded money not just for his client, but for himself.
The charges in the New York case are extortion, extortion conspiracy, transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort, and conspiracy to transmit interstate communications with the intent to extort.
At one point in the secretly recorded negotiations, a lawyer for Nike noted that he had never been paid the kind of money by Nike that Avenatti was demanding, court documents say. Avenatti allegedly responded by asking whether the lawyer had ever "held the balls of the client in your hand where you could take five to six billion dollars market cap off of them?"
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, dropped Avenatti as her lawyer earlier this year. In a statement issued after his arrest, she said she was "saddened but not shocked" by reports he had been charged. Avenatti, she said, "dealt with me extremely dishonestly."
In the California case, Avenatti is accused of misusing client funds, and lying to a bank about his income to obtain loans totaling $4.1 million for his law firm and coffee business.
According to court papers filed in that case, Avenatti negotiated in January a $1.6 million settlement on behalf of an unidentified client but gave that client a bogus settlement agreement with a false payment date.
Avenatti allegedly used his client's money to pay expenses for his coffee business, as well as his own expenses, concealing what he'd done from the client, officials charge.
As part of a long-running investigation into Avenatti's alleged financial misdeeds, officials said he did not pay taxes for several years, and owed the Internal Revenue Service $850,438 in unpaid taxes, plus interest and penalties.
"There have been collection efforts going on for many, many years," said Nick Hanna, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. "This investigation was started in the ordinary course, it came up through the IRS with the collection of back taxes."
Hanna said the Avenatti case "has nothing to do with anything political or with anything else. The facts in this case speak for themselves."
Avenatti also was at the center of renewed sexual abuse allegations against R&B superstar R. Kelly, who was indicted last month after the attorney provided video purportedly depicting Kelly having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl to Cook County prosecutors.
Nate Diaz hasn't stepped into the Octagon since a decision loss to Conor McGregor at UFC 202 on August 20, 2016. But the Stockton, California native seems to be itching for a fight with UFC Lightweight Champion, Khabib Nurmegomedov.
Is an Instagram post Monday, March 25, Diaz called out Nurmegomedov, while also roasting Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier.
“Kabibs hiding scared cause I slapped the shit out of him Conor already got his ass beat twice Where the fuck you at kabib? Ps porier is a pussy”
Would you like to see Nate vs Nurmegomedov, a trilogy fight with McGregor or both? And who would you pick in either of those scraps?
UFC flyweight champion Henry Cejudo joins Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show to react to TJ Dillashaw reliquinshing his bantamweight championship due to a failed drug test. Cejudo says he feels sad about this news and he would never fight Dillashaw again. Henry breaks down that before Dillashaw failed this test, the plan for the UFC was to in fact have a rematch with TJ over the summer (4:39). Cejudo reveals the next plan for him is to fight Marlon Moraes for the bantamweight title at UFC 238 in Chicago (5:46). Cejudo delivers a strong message to Moraes stating that he isn’t afraid of him and will shut his “lights out” (8:44). Cejudo adds that it looks like the UFC flyweight division is sticking around and calls himself the ‘flyweight savior of the world” (10:14). Cejudo describes what it meant for him to go back to the NCAA Wrestling championships and what the reception was like for him (15:19).
Winston Duke, star of Jordan Peele's new movie 'Us', dives deep into the symbolism in the film. The 'Black Panther' star also describes how empathy is his biggest tool to life.
Us co-stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke go Sneaker Shopping with Complex's Joe La Puma at Stadium Goods in New York City and talk about the upcoming film, LeBron James' reaction to the trailer, and what happened when she wore Kendrick Lamar's sneakers on set.
In this clip, Tray Deee detailed his past as a robber and explained how he pulled off armed robberies. According to Tray Deee, the circumstances are almost always different but the motive is normally straightforward - you rob someone who has something you want. He said that he has even run into people he once robbed but nothing serious ever happened.
Keak Da Sneak recounted the night he was shot 8 times while sitting in his car, and he explained that when he tried to drive away from the scene, he couldn't feel his legs. Keak went on to reveal that he passed out when the ambulance arrived, and he woke up in the hospital with his mother praying over his bed. To hear more, including the progress he's made in therapy.
Report via New York Post -- Marc Gomez was awaiting arraignment Saturday night for the cowardly, caught-on-cellphone violence from March 10.
Footage of the attack went viral after it was posted on social media — prompting outrage not only for its brutality, but because at least two straphangers whipped out cellphones to record the incident instead of trying to help.
The viral video shows the man attacking the 78-year-old victim as she is sitting in a northbound No. 2 train around 3 a.m. March 10, police said.
She tried to defend herself as her attacker kicked her in the face and body — while straphangers can be heard shouting in the background, but doing nothing to intervene.
As the train was stopped at Nereid Avenue, the man yells something at his victim before turning around, looking at the camera and shouting, “WorldStar that, my nigga.” — referring to the popular social media page that is filled with violent videos. He then got off the train.
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (WCHS/WVAH) — Prosecutors said a federal grand jury indicted a former West Virginia state trooper Wednesday for using excessive force in the alleged beating of a 16-year-old in Martinsburg that was captured in a dashcam video.
Ex-trooper Michael Kennedy, 29, of Morgantown is charged with one count of “Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Kennedy is accused of using excessive force resulting in bodily injury during the arrest on Nov. 19, 2018, in Berkeley County. If convicted, Kennedy faces up to 10 years of incarceration and a fine of up to $250,000.
In January, State Police announced that Kennedy, who was a trooper first class, and Trooper First Class Derek Walker were discharged over the incident. The Berkeley County sheriff said two deputies also were fired.
State Police Superintendent Jan Cahill in an interview with MetroNews described the video that shows the altercation. He said five officers are shown in the video and the juvenile is taken out of the vehicle after it crashes. At one point, the superintendent told MetroNews, a person is picked up and thrown.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice previously condemned the actions of the troopers shown in the video.
The FBI is investigating the incident, along with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the Berkeley County Prosecutor's Office.
In this clip, Tray Deee and Vlad discuss the rumor that Puff Daddy had put out a $10K bounty on Death Row chains, while noting his early affiliations at the time with South Side Crips. From there, they speak on Greg Kading's secretly recorded confession from Keefe D, as Tray shares his disbelief over Kading's “snitching to pay it forward” police tactics. Elsewhere in the segment, it's also mentioned that prior to his death and early on in the investigation, Orlando Anderson's aunt had called the police to say that she believed her nephew was involved in 2Pac's murder.