FBI: Anniston man hired undercover agent to kill neighbor

9-2-2013 Alabama:

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) - A disabled Army veteran from Anniston has been charged in a murder-for-hire plot against his neighbor, FBI officials said Monday.

Allen Wayne Densen Morgan, 29, is accused of hiring an undercover FBI agent to murder a man he believed raped his wife days earlier, according to court documents filed by the FBI.

The affidavit says an FBI agent called Morgan pretending to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan on Thursday, Aug. 22. The agent called to verify that Morgan wanted to hire someone to kill his neighbor.

[READ THE FULL COURT DOCUMENT HERE]

Morgan told the agent that he had just confronted his neighbor in Munford and fired several rounds at the ground to intimidate him. He said he didn't intend to kill the neighbor then because "several people were present."

According to court documents, Morgan described how he wanted his neighbor murdered by stating, "I want this man hung like a tree like an animal. I want his [expletive] cut off and I want him cut...I want him hung from a tree and gutted...that's how I want him to die. Die a slow painful death and that's it."

Morgan said he would discuss payment with the supposed hit man when they met up on Sunday, Aug. 25.

6 plead guilty to beating man with hammer

4-20-2011 Pennsylvania:

A Latrobe woman, her mother and four men pleaded guilty on Friday to charges they broke into a man's home and beat him with a claw hammer.

Police said Felisha Hardison, 25, told her mother and a group of men that she was raped by 25-year-old Cody Wightman. That report led to their driving to Wightman's home, kicking in his door, punching and kicking him and finally hitting him with a claw hammer.

In court yesterday, Hardison, along with Brian Lehman Jr., Justin Libengood, Steven M. Kozemchak, Daniel Robert Chew Jr. and Hardison's mother, Judith Lundgren, pleaded guilty to charges related to the April 18, 2010, incident.

According to court records, police said Hardison and her mother picked up the men and drove them to Wightman's home. The women sat in a minivan during the assault and were charged as accomplices.

"(Wightman's) injuries were limited to a cut on his head that required some stitches, and some bruises," said Assistant District Attorney Chris Flanigan, who recommended plea bargains for each of the defendants.

Hardison pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, burglary and aggravated assault, and to charges of filing a false report with police in which she alleged she was sexually assaulted by another man.

NH- Report: Rape lie ignited dad's rage

10-19-2007 New Hampshire:

WEARE – The man who beat up his 15-year-old daughter's boyfriend in the high school parking lot last month did so after the daughter reported the boy had raped her, according to court documents.

The girl later admitted lying -- the sex was consensual, she said.

On Tuesday, Gilberto L. Soto, 38, of Weare, was arraigned on a charge of second-degree assault -- a Class B felony -- for attacking 17-year-old Damon Hadley, an attack that sent Hadley to the hospital.

Soto waived his right to court-appointed counsel and was released on $500 personal recognizance.

According to court documents, the girl's mother called police at 1 p.m. on Sept. 10 and said she wanted to file a report that her daughter had been forced to have sex with Hadley in the parking lot of John Stark Regional High School.

Less than two hours later, Soto called police and asked what was going to happen to the boy who allegedly attacked his daughter.

Ten minutes later, he was arrested by the school's resource officer, having allegedly attacked Hadley in the school's parking lot, leaving him with cuts, bruises and two stitches to his face.

The beating took place in full view of students and parents just as school was letting out around 3 p.m.

Teens' attempted Web jokes serious: Fake profiles of assistant principals alleged sex abuse, used racist words

3-30-2007 North Carolina:

Two Mooresville High School students have been charged with cyberstalking after they admitted creating fake profiles of their assistant principals on MySpace, police said

The students portrayed one of the administrators as a pedophile, police said. They also used racist words.

Tyler Yannone and Lauren Strazzabosco, both 16, were arrested last week on two counts each of misdemeanor cyberstalking.

Principal Mark Rendell said the school lacked the authority to discipline the students because they did not create the profiles on campus.

Ron Yannone, Tyler Yannone's father, told the Observer he is disappointed in his son and has grounded him. But, he said, he is unhappy with how police and the school handled the situation.

"We can't outlaw insulting people," he said. "If we did, we'd have no politicians left. Just look at what is said about our president every day."

The Internet and social sites like MySpace have vaulted youthful pranks onto a worldwide stage that can carry serious consequences. Fake profiles of athletes, celebrities and school administrators are common online. Students in several states have been criminally charged after posting fake sites.

In California, a newspaper last year found fake profiles of nine principals from one county. And in Texas, a principal sued last year after students posted a fake profile incorrectly identifying her as a lesbian.

Strazzabosco's father declined comment. Yannone said his son is an honor student and a member of the band, and has never been suspended or had in-school suspension. He said Strazzabosco, his son's girlfriend, is also a good student.

The fake profiles, which have been deleted from MySpace, were clearly written in jest, he said.

"It was a joke. They went too far, as kids do," he said. "I am disappointed with what my son and his girlfriend did. But I'm disturbed and distressed that anybody involved in this would think they broke the law."

Forty-five states have laws against cyberstalking, which is defined as generally annoying or threatening behavior that takes place online, according to a Web site that tracks online abuse. North Carolina's law, passed in 2000, makes it a Class 2 misdemeanor, which generally carries the possibility of fines and community service, but no jail time.

Mooresville police Sgt. Joe Cooke said they began an investigation in February after an uninvolved student told one of the assistant principals about his fake MySpace profile. The site has a link to report fake profiles and will take them down.

Detectives used a court order to trace the Web page back to Yannone and Strazzabosco, who Cooke said later admitted creating the profiles.

The Observer was unable to reach the administrators on Thursday.

When Yannone and Strazzabosco were questioned by an officer at school, Ron Yannone said, they admitted what they'd done and apologized.

Ron Yannone thinks he should have been contacted then and allowed input before police charged his son.

"If we are going to start arresting children over this kind of stuff," he said, "we've gone terribly wrong as a country."

Boen Nutting, a spokeswoman for the Mooresville Graded School District, said she is saddened by the incident, but not because she believes anyone would believe what was printed on MySpace.

"It's so important that we teach our children to respect adults and respect authority," she said. "That's what worries me most about this."

North Carolina's Law On Cyberstalking

Creating a fake online profile may not sound like stalking, but the law includes any electronic communication making a false statement concerning death, injury, illness, disfigurement, indecent conduct or criminal conduct with the intent to abuse, annoy, threaten, terrify, harass, or embarrass. ..more.. by MELISSA MANWARE

Sex story was lie, teen accuser admits

4-3-2007 Utah:

Charges were dropped Monday against a Sandy woman accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a teenage friend of her daughter after the alleged victim admitted he fabricated the story.

The boy lied in an apparent attempt to keep the girl from moving out of state with her mother, according to the woman's attorney.

On a motion by prosecutors, 3rd District Judge Royal Hansen on Monday threw out first-degree felony charges of rape and forcible sodomy against Kathy English, who could have faced five years to life in prison.

English said she doesn't know if she'll ever recover from the ordeal of being falsely labeled a sex offender. Media coverage of the case caused her to lose 75 percent of her customers, according to English, who has worked as a hairdresser for 35 years.

"I lost so many friends," she said. "I want my name back. I was innocent all along."

English, 54, was charged Jan. 2 based on allegations by a boy who claimed he was assaulted in November 2005 when he was 16 and later witnessed English engaged in sexual activity with another teen.

Defense attorney Mark Moffat said the accuser came to his office after English was charged and admitted it was all a lie to stop her from moving to Florida with her daughter, whom the boy was interested in romantically.

Moffat said the boy told him that he thought the
rape charge would keep the girl with her father, who is divorced from English and lives in Salt Lake County.

"The [Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office] office should be applauded for the action they took" in dropping the case, Moffat said. He noted, however, that prosecutors believed the story to be true at the time charges were filed.

Moffat called the lie "outrageous" and said it has caused English a huge public embarrassment.

It was unclear Monday whether police intended now to seek criminal charges against the accuser. ..more.. by Pamela Mason

Underage victim apologizes to sex offender!

6-15-2004 Kansas:

OLATHE, Kan. - The 14-year-old victim of a man convicted of having sex with her apologized Monday for convincing him she was 18. The [technical offender] was sentenced Monday in Johnson County District Court to nine months in jail for aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

[He] plead guilty to the crime in April, saying he didn't know the girl was underage.

The girl, who met [him] last fall after posting an Internet profile claiming that she was 18 and interested in meeting men for casual sex, apologized to [him] and her family for the pain her behavior had caused. (The Kansas City Star)....more....

Accuser in home invasion arrested: Woman faces charges of filing false report

10-10-2004 New York

.The apparent victim of an Amherst home invasion swapped places in the Amherst town jail Friday night with the man she claimed attacked her. Amherst police detectives said Kim Novara, 36, confessed that she lied when she reported Gregory L. Mitchell, 42, of Buffalo broke into her house with a gun early Thursday, tied her up with a telephone cord and tried to rape her.

Minutes after felony burglary and unlawful imprisonment charges were dropped against Mitchell and he was freed, Novara was arraigned before Amherst Town Justice Geoffrey K. Klein on misdemeanor counts of filing a false written statement and falsely reporting an incident.

"During the course of our investigation, more and more information came forward and led us to believe that what we were being led to believe was not exactly true," Assistant Police Chief Ronald H. Hagelberger said.

Novara, a mother of four children, initially told police that Mitchell broke into her Glenhaven Drive apartment about 7:30 a.m., tied her up with a telephone cord and threatened to kill her and her children. She claimed he slashed her across the arms, subjected her to sexual contact and attempted to abduct her 10-year-old daughter, all while holding her at gunpoint until 9:30 a.m.

Amherst police talked with Novara, her 15-year-old son - who according to Novara's story, beat the attacker away with a baseball bat - and other witnesses. Police realized there was something fishy about the story, Hagelberger said.

Later, Novara confessed it wasn't Mitchell. "She was mad at Mr. Mitchell. That is why she was making the allegations against him," Hagelberger said. ..more.. T.J. PIGNATARO | News Staff Reporter

Police say woman lied about kidnapping, rape

10-10-2004 Indiana

.An Indianapolis woman was arrested today after authorities said she falsely claimed to have been kidnapped, raped and forced into the trunk of her car along with her 3-year-old son. Lodis V. Teague, 24, was booked into the Arrestee Processing Center on preliminary charges of false reporting and child neglect.

"She fabricated the entire story. She was never sexually assaulted and she is the one who put her child into the trunk of her car," said Capt. Phil Burton, a Marion County sheriff's department spokesman.

The police report indicates that the woman tried unsuccessfully to place calls from her cellular phone. A relative who was not part of the hoax found her, Burton said. Burton said he's not sure of her motive or why she misled detectives.

He said the sheriff's department wants to "send a message" to warn people "that you will go to jail" in such a hoax. Child neglect is a class D felony, punishable by six months to three years in prison if convicted. ..more.. Tom Spalding

After Man Serves 20 Years In Prison, 'Victims' Admit Lying: Pair Said Grandmother Pushed Them To Lie

11-5-2004 North Carolina:

.RALEIGH, N.C. -- Two women in North Carolina are recanting their testimony in a child molestation case that had imprisoned a man for 20 years, with one saying her grandmother made them accuse the wrong man.

The accusers are cousins who were four and six when they accused Sylvester Smith of sexual abuse. Smith was convicted and given two consecutive life sentences in 1984.

One of the women said the real abuser was a cousin who's now in prison. A prosecutor said the woman now say their grandmother pressured them to accuse Smith rather than the cousin, in order to protect him.

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley prosecuted the case when he was a district attorney. Easley's spokeswoman said the governor doesn't have enough information to comment. ..more..

Molestation Charges Against Lodi Firefighter Dropped

12-8-2004 California:

Felony child molestation charges against a Lodi fire captain have been dismissed after his purported victim recanted her claims during testimony. Deputies with the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department arrested Fire Captain Michael Tecklenburg, 43, in September following claims made by a teenage girl that he had raped her.

The case surrounds a 15-year-old girl, who is not being identified by News10 because of her status as a minor, who had run away from home two weeks previously. Tecklenburg spearheaded an intensive search for her, enlisting his friends and fellow firefighters to assist.

According to the investigators, the girl contacted her therapist and told him Tecklenburg had repeatedly sexually assaulted her during the past several months. The therapist put the teen in contact with detectives.

In court testimony the girl claimed the notion that she was raped by Tecklenburg was planted by detectives. She said at first she denied it, but became exhausted after hours of questioning and said the sexual assaults had occurred. ..more.. News10

Court clears Texas man who has spent 12 years in prison

12-9-2004 Texas

.After 12 years in prison insisting that he was wrongfully convicted of molesting a 3-year-old girl, John Michael Harvey of Bedford in North Texas won a rare finding of innocence Wednesday from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In a narrow decision, the state's highest criminal court agreed 5-4 with a Tarrant County judge that Harvey is "actually innocent" and would not have been convicted after the girl's recantation more than a decade later.

Eva Archer-Smith, Harvey's cousin from Houston, screamed into the telephone Wednesday after being told of the court's decision. Since Harvey, 40, began his life behind bars, his parents have died, his fiancee has left him, and he has suffered a heart attack, she said.

Archer-Smith hopes to have Harvey home in time for Christmas. "This is so fabulous," she said. "It is the perfect time of year for the light to shine." ..more.. MAX B. BAKER

Accused child molester is found not guilty

12-10-2004 Vermont:

."The nightmare is over," Norman Cook, 48, declared after a jury found him not guilty of child molestation Thursday. Cook, of Brattleboro, was facing a maximum of 80 years in prison on charges that he sexually assaulted a 9-year-old girl six years ago.

"This is a small town, and Mr. Cook had to put up with being looked at as a pedophile for over a year," defense attorney Eileen Hongisto of the firm Harris & Stone said of her client.

"People need to know he was acquitted of everything." Hongisto said she believes the jury was swayed by Cook's testimony on the stand, and inconsistencies in his now 15-year-old accuser's story.

"The details of what she said happened, to the therapist and a police officer, a social worker and when she testified on the stand changed," Hongisto said. "And the fact that it was a one time alleged thing -- for pedophiles, that's not the pattern."

The allegations against Cook were brought forward after his accuser, of Troy, N.H., had been found by authorities, Hongisto said. "At worst case scenario, she was lying and trying to get out of trouble. A total fabrication," Hongisto said. ..more.. ANDREW RAGOUZEOS Reformer Staff

Police: Girl's Molestation Story 'Unfounded': Detectives Find Discrepancies In Girl's Story

12-17-2004 Indiana:

Police said a 7-year-old girl's account of three sexual molestations at the hands of a stranger were unfounded. Police said the girl claimed that two of the incidents occurred at Indianapolis Public School 44 in the 2000 block of North Sugar Grove Avenue on the city's west side, and that a third sexual assault happened nearby, behind a school bus.

The girl also claimed that the man had a gun during one of the attacks, police said. Detectives who re-interviewed the child found too many discrepancies in her story, RTV6 reported. The Indy Channel.com ..more.. see earlier story: Girl, 7, Claims Man Fondled Her On School Property

Vigilante Dad stands by daughter even though school board says her story is a fake

1-27-2006 Florida:

.A dad (David Swafford) who made national headlines and was even named father of the year by a local radio station for his act of vigilante justiceis speaking out again. He's charged with felony battery and now the Manatee County School Board says his daughter could be facing suspension or even expulsion for cooking up an entire story about a teachers assistant touching her inappropriately. The dad is not backing down though, even though the cards are stacking up against him.

Dave Swafford, Alleged Victim's Father: "I'm standing by my daughter. I believe my daughter she doesn't lie to me."

Dave Swafford was arrested for punching a Lakewood Ranch High School teachers assistant Tuesday after Swafford's daughter says the aide locked her in a classroom touching her inappropriately and making comments. But on Thursday, the Manatee County School Board dropped a bombshell.

Roger Dearing, Manatee County School Superintendent: "We have found that Mr. Mathis is not guilty of what this young lady has accused him of doing that her accusations are false timelines don't match up other students in class they don't corroborate her story." The school says Swafford's daughter and a few friends made up the story because the aide disciplined Swafford after she dumped a Coke on another students head. The school also says it has a videotape of the teachers aid on the opposite side of campus when the incident is alleged to have happened.

Roger Dearing, Manatee County School Superintendent: "This alleged victim and one of her friends went around and tried to get other girls to make false statements." The school says it was a student that came forward alerting authorities to what the girls were up to and during the investigation one girl admitted her allegations were a lie.

Dave Swafford, Alleged Victim's Father:
"They're covering their butts. I mean they have a pedophile in their school and they don't want a bunch of teachers suing them.. What they want to do is they want the parents scared they want the students scared and they want us all to turn our tails and run and obviously I don't turn my tail and run."

Swafford says his daughter went to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office Thursday and gave a recorded statement to deputies about her side of the story. We tried unsuccessfully to reach Deon Mathis, the teachers aide, for comment. He is expected back in school tomorrow. The manatee county sheriff's office says it's investigation into the matter is still open. ..more.. : by Sara Dorsey

Teacher sues ex-wife for false claims of sex abuse

8-23-2006 Michigan:

.An Eastpointe school teacher has sued his ex-wife for her false accusations to police that he sexually molested their son and her son. Jeffrey Edwards, 33, filed a lawsuit in Macomb Circuit Court on Friday, saying his former wife, Muingo Muthui-Edwards, slandered him and deliberately inflicted emotional distress on him by telling police and social service agencies here and in Pennsylvania that he molested the two boys, aged 3 and 6.

Eastpointe police and social service officials in the two states have determined that the assaults never occurred and have cleared Edwards of any wrongdoing. Edwards told The Macomb Daily on Monday that he filed the lawsuit because of the toll the made-up accusations have taken on him.

"I've spent countless hours and money defending my reputation," Edwards said. "This has been a nightmare, an atrocity." The couple, whose divorce was finalized in April after 13 months of marriage, are mired in a custody battle over their son. Muthui-Edwards, who moved to northeast Pennsylvania to live near her parents after the divorce, also has another son from a prior relationship. ..more.. : by Jameson Cook, Macomb Daily Staff Writer