By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The man dubbed the Underwear Bomber has until Aug. 19 to hammer out a plea deal, the Associated reported. Trial is set for October. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried blowing up an Amsterdam to Detroit bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day in 2009, appeared in U.S. District Court on Thursday…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — No body armor, no cash. That’s what the Justice Department is saying. USA Today reports that the Justice Department is threatening to withhold millions of federal dollars from local police departments that don’t require uniformed officers to wear body armor. The threats come in wake of a spike in…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Despite all the advances, human error can still trump modern technology. The Portland Oregonian reports that the FBI’s efforts last July to record Mohamed Mohamud first talking about taking part in a terrorist bombing plot in Portland failed because the tape recorder went dead. “Put simply,” the government wrote in court…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The feds on Thursday came down on one current and three former Chicago cops — all members of a now disbanded elite-city wide unit — implicating them in an out-of-control flurry of activity that involved false arrests, false charges and the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug dealers….
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The modern day pirates continue to baffle the world in their ability to commandeer large ships and get away with it. Still, not all have gone free. On Thursday, Jama Idle Ibrahim, a/k/a Jaamac Ciidle, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Washington to 25 years in prison for his role…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Hate never seems to go out of style. A federal grand jury in Arkansas indicted five state residents for their alleged role in the Molotov cocktail fire bombing of a mixed-race couple’s trailer near Hardy, Ark. in January, authorities announced Thursday. No one was injured. Those indicted on civil rights and…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — ATF agent Clifford Dean Posey finds himself in big big trouble. A grand jury in Virginia charged Posey with 20 counts that included allegations that he stole guns and cigarettes from ATF and sold them, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday, the day indictment was unsealed. Authorities alleged that…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — So much for secure security clearances. Catherine G. Webb, 47, who worked as Special Agent of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), pled guilty Wednesday in Washington federal court to falsifying work on background investigations for agencies trying to determine if people were fit for jobs that would…
