Federal and State Law Enforcement in Maryland and DC Announce New Regional Carjacking Prosecution Task Force to Address Spikes in Carjackings Over the Past Year | Southern Maryland News Net smnewsnet.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smnewsnet.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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An Owings Mills man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for a racketeering conspiracy. (Shutterstock)
OWINGS MILLS, MD – An Owings Mills man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for a racketeering conspiracy.
Chaz Chriscoe, 40, will also have three years of supervised release from the Jessup Correctional Institution, the Maryland U.S. Attorney s Office announced Wednesday. Officials said the conspiracy included former correctional officers, inmates and outside facilitators, like Chriscoe, who paid bribes to correctional officers to smuggle contraband, including narcotics, alcohol, tobacco and cell phones into the prison.
On May 3, JCI inmate Darnell Smith, 40, pleaded guilty to his role in the racketeering conspiracy. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Fake Vaccine Domain Seized
A fraudulent website impersonating a biotechnology company to allegedly steal data has been seized by the United States Attorney s Office for the District of Maryland. Freevaccinecovax.org purported to be the domain name of a company that was developing a vaccine for COVID-19. However, the site was allegedly set up to collect the personal information of visitors and use it for nefarious purposes.
According to the affidavit filed in support of the seizure, the apparently fraudulent website “freevaccinecovax.org” was discovered by the Homeland Security Investigations Cyber Crimes Center (“C3”) and the Homeland Security Investigations Intellectual Property Rights Center (“IPRC”).
Fake Vaccine Domain Seized - Infosecurity Magazine infosecurity-magazine.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from infosecurity-magazine.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Victor Omondi
According to recently released court filings, a pastor in Washington, D.C. allegedly made fraudulent applications to the Paycheck Protection Program for $3.5 million, received the loans, and used them to buy himself a Tesla, among a number of other personal purchases.
The PPP is a program introduced by the federal government to encourage revenue-losing businesses to keep their workers on payroll amid business closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rudolph Brooks Jr. from Maryland and pastor at Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration used the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act to allegedly acquire a $1.5 million loan from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office released a statement indicating that Brooks used the loan funds for his own purposes instead, and not as indicated in the application documents.