5. Marion Barry
Marion Barry is a well known politician and long-time mayor of Washington D.C. On December 22, 1988, police officers were about to make an undercover drug buy from Charles Lewis, a former Virgin Islands official, and were called back when they learned that Mayor Marion Barry was in Lewis’s hotel room. This led to a grand jury investigation into possible interference, by the mayor, in the drug investigation. Barry appeared before the grand jury and testified for three hours and later told reporters he had done nothing
wrong. Then, on January 18, 1990, the FBI and D.C. Police set up a sting operation and arrested Barry in a Washington D.C. Hotel, after he smoked crack cocaine in a room with his former girlfriend, who had become an FBI informant. It was there that Barry said the now famous words that are often associated with him; “Bitch set me up”. As a result of his arrest and the ensuing trial, Barry decided not to seek reelection as mayor. A grand jury returned 14 counts against him, including possible perjury before a grand jury. If convicted on all 14 counts, the mayor could have faced 26 years in jail. The jury only found Barry guilty of cocaine usage and he was sentenced to six-months in prison. After Barry was released from jail he ran for city council. Because of the feeling by many that the government was just out to get Marion Barry, along with his general popularity; he received 70 percent of the vote. Then, in 1995, Barry was elected Mayor of Washington DC for the fourth time. Today, Barry is back serving on the D.C. city council.
Interesting Fact: Whatever you think of Marion Barry you have to admire his tenacity, and his passion for serving the people of D.C. The incident above is just a small chapter in his fascinating life. Last year HBO made a documentary called “The Nine Lives of Marion Barry,” You can watch the trailer here SaveFrom.net.
4. Joran Van der Sloot
Joran Van der Sloot is a Dutch national who is a prime suspect relating to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, who has been missing since May 30, 2005, during a high school graduation trip in Aruba. The case was revived on March 29, 2010 when Van der Sloot contacted John Q. Kelly, legal representative of Holloway’s mother Beth Twitty. Van der Sloot offered to reveal information around the circumstances of Holloway’s death, and the location of her body, for a total $250,000 with $25,000 paid in advance. Kelly and Twitty contacted law-enforcement authorities in Alabama, and the FBI set a sting operation into motion. On May 10, Van der Sloot accepted the amount of $15,000 by wire transfer to his account in the Netherlands, and then another $10,000 was paid to him in cash. In exchange for the money, he took Kelly on a drive to show where Holloway’s remains were. He pointed out a house and said his father had helped dispose of the body in the foundation. This turned out to be false because the house was not built when Holloway disappeared. Later Van der Sloot told Kelly in an e-mail that it was all a hoax. At this point Van der Sloot could have been arrested for wire fraud and extortion, but authorities delayed the arrest because they were trying to build a murder case against him. Van der Sloot was not only left free, he was allowed to leave Aruba and use the money he received from the sting to go to Bogotá, Colombia, and then to Lima Peru. In a Casino hotel in Lima he met Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21 year old business student at the University of Lima. Security video shows Van der Sloot and Ramirez entering a hotel room together, but only Van der sloot leaving. On June 2, Ramirez was found beaten to death, her neck broken, in the hotel room which was registered in Van der Sloot’s name. Ramirez died on May 30, 2010, exactly five years from Natalee Holloway’s disappearance. Van der Sloot was arrested On June 3, and on June 7, he confessed to the killing.
Interesting Fact: Van der Sloot is currently locked away in the Miguel Castro prison in Peru, where murder charges are filed. He reportedly now says he’ll reveal the location of Natalee Holloway’s body if he is allowed transfer to an Aruba jail.
3. Perverted Justice Stings
Perverted-Justice in an organization that carries out sting operations by having volunteers pose as 10-15 year old minors on chat sites, and then wait for an adult to message or email the decoy back. If the conversation turns sexual in nature they will not discourage it or outright encourage it. Then they will try to identify the men by obtaining their telephone numbers and other details, so that a meeting can be arranged. The organization then passes the information on to law-enforcement. Perverted-Justice has also collaborated with an American reality program called “To Catch a Predator”. One of the more controversial cases occurred in 2006 in Murphy, Texas. Louis Conradt (Pictured above) was a district attorney in Texas, and posed as a 19-year-old university student and engaged in sexually charged online chats with someone who he believed was a 13-year-old boy. After Conradt asked for pictures of the boy’s penis, they brought in an actor to play the boy over the phone. When Conradt stopped responding to phone calls and instant messages, police and the reality show decided to bring the operation to Conradt’s home, with a search warrant. When officers moved in to make an arrest, they heard a gunshot. They found Conradt inside with a self-inflicted wound and he later died at a hospital.
Interesting Fact: The sting in Murphy, Texas, resulted in 23 arrests for on-line solicitation of a minor. In June, 2007, all 23 cases were not prosecuted due to insufficient evidence. Conradt’s family filed a suit against Dateline’s To Catch a Predator series for $105 million. The case was eventually settled out of court. In 2008 the network canceled production of all future episodes.
2. Rachel Hoffman
During a traffic stop in Tallahassee, Florida, on February 22, 2007, Rachel Hoffman (pictured above) was caught with 25 grams of marijuana. Then, on April 17, 2008, police searched her apartment and uncovered 151.7 grams of cannabis, and 4 ecstasy pills. She was reportedly told by police that she would go to prison unless she became an undercover informant for them. She was then sent, untrained, to an undercover meeting to buy a large amount of drugs and a handgun from two suspected drug dealers. While she was at the drug buy, the suspects changed the location of the buy. The policemen that were monitoring the sting, lost track of her when she left the buy spot with the two suspects in their car. While in transit, the two suspects executed her with the same gun she was supposed to buy. Her body was recovered two days later near Perry, Florida. On December 17, 2009, which would have been Rachel Hoffman’s 25th birthday, one of the murder suspects, was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The second murder suspect is scheduled for trial in October 2010.
Interesting Fact: On May 7, 2009, a law called “Rachel’s Law” was passed by the Florida State Senate. Rachel’s Law requires law enforcement agencies to (a) provide special training for officers who recruit confidential informants, (b) instruct informants that reduced sentences may not be provided in exchange for their work, and (c) permit informants to request a lawyer if they want one.
1. Mr. Big
Mr. Big is also called “the Canadian technique”, and was developed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the early 1990s for unsolved homicides. It is used in Canada and Australia, but it is considered entrapment in many other countries, including the United States and England. The technique works something like this: An undercover police unit poses as members of a fictitious gang, into which the suspect is inducted. The suspect is invited to participate in a series of criminal activities (all faked by the police). In addition, the “gang members” build a personal relationship with the suspect, by drinking together and other social activities. After a period of time, he is introduced to Mr. Big, the gang leader. The suspect is told that the police have a renewed interest in the original crime, and to give the gang further details. They explain that Mr. Big may have the ability to influence the police investigation, but only if he admits all of the details of the crime. He is also told that he must be completely clear about any other past crimes, or the gang may not be willing to continue to work with him because he would become a liability. The photo above shows Royal Canadian Mounted Police during a memorial service, carrying the hats of four officers slain in Edmonton Canada, in 2005. Two of the men serving prison sentences for the murders made confessions to Mr. Big operatives.
Interesting Fact: In British Columbia, the technique has been used over 180 times, and, in 80% of the cases, it resulted in either a confession or the elimination of the suspect from suspicion. However, cases of false confessions and wrongful convictions have recently come to the public’s attention, and many are starting to question the controversial technique. In 2007, a documentary was made, called Mr. Big, that was very critical of the procedure.
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