The Daily Blog

Ramazan Acar, Australian ‘Facebook Killer,’ Gets Life Sentence For Murdering Daughter After Social Media Threats.

An Australian man dubbed the “Facebook killer” after posting he was “bout to kill ma kid” on the social media site before repeatedly stabbing his two-year-old daughter and leaving her to die has been sentenced to life in prison.

As the Newcastle Herald is reporting, Ramazan Acar, 24, repeatedly taunted his ex-partner, Rachelle D’Argent, on the night he killed their daughter Yazmina, known as “Mimi,” with Facebook status updates, text messages and phone calls in November 2010. Acar is said to have killed his daughter shortly after the original posting, and followed up with “payback u slut.”

The AFP reports that Acar had picked up Yazmina at D’Argent’s home earlier that day, telling her was taking the girl to a local candy shop. After taking Yazmina, Acar communicated with D’Argent by phone and via a bizarre series of text messages, at one point telling her she would not get her child back and asking whether he should kill the girl in a car crash or stab her. “How does it feel to not have your child when I did not have mine for three months?” he is quoted as saying. He also said: “I loved you Rachelle and look what you’ve made me do.”

Melbourne Magistrates Court Justice Elizabeth Curtain reportedly called the crime “chilling and horrific,” and said life in prison was the only appropriate sentence for Acar, who had pleaded guilty:

“More than that, the victim was your infant daughter, and she was killed by the one man in the world whose duty it was to love, nurture and protect her,” Justice Curtain said. “As such, your conduct was a fundamental breach of the trust that reposes between parent and child, a fundamental breach of a parent’s most fundamental obligation.

“Further, you committed this murder for the worst possible motives - revenge and spite. You killed your daughter to get back at her mother. You used your daughter, an innocent victim, as the instrument of your overarching desire to inflict pain on your former partner.”

After the verdict was read, D’Argent reportedly spoke tenderly to her dead daughter while clutching a photo. “Mimi, it’s our day today,” she said. “Mummy told you there would be justice for you…and even though I haven’t accepted that you’re not here, forever you’ll be in my heart and I know you’ll always be smiling down on all of us.”

While in custody, Acar also reportedly told police he wanted to kill himself as well, but “did not have the balls.”

German “cannibal Killer” Sentenced To Life.

BERLIN — A 26-year-old German man dubbed the “cannibal killer” after he confessed to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of one of his teenage victims has been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Jan O., whose last name was withheld in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in Goettingen state court of two counts of murder Monday for the November slayings of a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy.

During the trial the defendant confessed to licking blood from a wound of the girl and biting flesh from her neck. He killed the boy five days later.

DAPD news agency reports Presiding Judge Ralf Guenther says the murders showed an “almost unimaginable dimension of criminality.”

Defense attorney Markus Fischer says he’s considering an appeal.

Buju Banton Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison.

Reggae singer Buju Banton was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday (June 24) for cocaine trafficking. Banton has been behind bars since late 2009, after he was busted for buying drugs from an undercover police officer.

A Florida judge declared a mistrial last September, leaving the Grammy winner acquitted of the attempted possession with the intent to distribute charge he was facing, but guilty of three other charges.

All along the 37-year-old and his lawyers — David Oscar Markus and David Seitles — have claimed that he was set-up by law enforcement. According to paperwork released by his council, Banton was merely a pawn in an entrapment scheme set forth by the DEA.

“The facts and circumstances of the confidential sources’ contacts with Mr. Myrie display a deliberate effort by a paid informant to ensnare a perfect stranger, who happened to be sitting next to him on an international flight, into committing a crime, thereby ensuring the informant more money,” said his lawyers. “The confidential source is a paid government informant. In addition to refusing to disclose the identity, the government has refused to identify the prior cases in which he has been involved, the outcomes of those cases, the amount of money he has earned making cases for the government, or even the amount he has been paid (or expects to be paid) in this case.”

Although his sentence is stiff, it could have been worse, as Banton was originally facing up to 20 years behind bars. While in prison he will be permitted to keep his dreadlocks and continue to practice his Rastafarian faith.

B.G. Faces 10 Years in Prison for Gun and Conspiracy Charges.

Former Cash Money rapper B.G. is facing up to 10 years in prison after being indicted on gun and conspiracy charges.

In a statement issued on Thursday (May 19) U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said that the New Orleans native — real name, Christopher Dorsey — is facing one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and two counts of being a felon in possession of a fireman, following a November 2009 arrest.

B.G. and two associates were pulled over and arrested after a routine traffic stop in 2009, when police found three handguns, loaded magazines and extended clips in the rapper’s car. B.G. and one associate were charged with illegally carrying firearms, while the third passenger was charged with drug possession.

The 30-year-old rapper is now accused of trying to pass off ownership of the illegal firearms to another passenger in the vehicle. If he is found guilty, B.G. can find himself behind bars for up to a decade.

B.G. parted ways with Cash Money Records after having a dispute with CEO Bryan “Birdman” Williams, and has since launched his own label, Chopper City Records. He released his eleventh album ‘Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood’ in 2009, and the his twelfth, tentatively titled ‘It’s All On U, Vol. 3’ will likely be delayed by his current legal troubles.

Gucci Mane’s Prison Sentence Shortened by 15 Months.

After months of back-to-back run-ins with the law, Gucci Mane has finally caught a break. The Atlanta native’s current prison sentence, stemming from parole violation charges, has been decreased and he will be released from jail next month.

According to RumorFix.com, Gucci’s lawyers convinced the judge in his case to decrease his sentence by more than a year, which occurred during his appearance in a Fulton County courtroom yesterday (May 9). While there was no reason given behind the shorter sentence, Gucci’s lawyer, Mark Issa, confirmed the news to the website.

The 31-year-old was apprehended in April on battery and parole violation charges, after he was accused of pushing a 36-year-old woman out of a moving vehicle. As previously reported, Gucci allegedly offered the woman $150 in exchange for an apparent sexual encounter and pushed her out of the car when she refused.

Ironically, this time last year the rapper completed a nine month prison sentence, and assured the public that he was through getting in trouble with the law. He has since been arrested on numerous occasions, and at one point, was believed to be in rehab for a rumored drug addiction.

Gucci is expected to be released at the end of June.

Nikita Tikhonov And Yevgenia Khasis, Russian Nationalists, Sentenced For Killing Human Rights Lawyer, Journalist.

MOSCOW — A Russian ultranationalist was sentenced to life in prison, and his girlfriend received an 18-year sentence Friday for the brazen daylight killing of a prominent human rights lawyer and an independent reporter.

The double killing sent shockwaves through Russia’s beleaguered human rights community and triggered a government crackdown on far-right and neo-Nazis groups that had gained popularity in recent years.

Nikita Tikhonov, 31, received the maximum sentence after the court convicted him of gunning down lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova. Tikhonov’s 26-year-old girlfriend, Yevgenia Khasis, was convicted as an accomplice in the January 2009 attack, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

A jury ruled last week that Tikhonov was the masked killer who used a 1910 Browning pistol to shoot Markelov and Baburova as they walked out of a press conference into a snowy street near the Kremlin. Khasis followed the two from the conference hall and helped Tikhonov identify the lawyer and the reporter, who wore heavy winter clothes and hats.

The defendants, who denied the charges, smiled from their courtroom cage as the judge read aloud the sentence, appearing uninterested at times and whispering to each other throughout. They were convicted last week.

Judge Alexander Zamashnyuk said the defendants were “led by the idea of their own superiority and ideological hatred toward Markelov.”

Tikhonov, with tattooed Celtic symbols on his arms and bandages on his wrists, shouted to the judge that he “understood the sentence.” Last week, he and Khasis slit their wrists in what a senior prosecutor called an “imitation of suicide.” Celtic imagery is popular among Russian neo-Nazis, with the Celtic cross thought to be a substitute for the Swastika.

“We will come out much earlier,” Tikhonov said as police escorted him and Khasis out of the courtroom.

Defense lawyer Alexander Vasilyev called the sentence “illegal and unfounded,” and said he would appeal, while senior prosecutor Boris Laktionov said he was “satisfied” with the outcome.

The 34-year-old Markelov’s work had angered nationalists, who had threatened him and cheered his killing in Internet comments. The lawyer also had made enemies through his work fighting for victims of rights abuses in Chechnya.

Investigators said Baburova, 25, was shot because she was a witness to the murder.

Tikhonov, the son of a counterintelligence officer, joined ultranationalist groups while studying history at Moscow State University, where he wrote a thesis on the “genocide” of ethnic Russians in Chechnya.

Police tracked down Tikhonov and Khasis by their messages on Internet forums and tapped their phones months ahead of their arrest in November 2009. In their rented Moscow apartment, investigators said the two kept an arsenal of arms and explosives, books on criminal justice and firearms, as well as detailed plans by ultranationalist groups for seizing power in Russia.

Tikhonov immediately confessed to the killing, but later said he was forced to confess because police threatened to abuse Khasis.

Two prominent ultranationalists testified against him during the 2 1/2-month trial, with one of them alleging that Tikhonov planned further killings of government officials and anti-racist activists.

Russia has seen a string of contract-style killings of human rights workers and journalists in recent years – few of them ever solved.

Racially motivated attacks that often target labor migrants from Russia’s Caucasus and ex-Soviet Central Asia peaked in 2008, when 110 people were killed and 487 wounded, according to independent watchdog Sova. The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights estimated that some 70,000 neo-Nazis were active in Russia, compared with just a few thousand in the early 1990s.

Markelov’s 2009 killing marked a tactical change for neo-Nazis and ultranationalists, who switched to killings of anti-racist activists and government officials and terrorist attacks, watchdog Sova said.

In April 2010, a federal judge who presided over trials of White Wolves, a mostly teenage group of skinheads convicted of killing and assaulting non-Slavs, was gunned down contract-style outside his Moscow apartment.

Members of a neo-Nazi group accused of planning to blow up a mosque, a McDonald’s restaurant and railway stations in Moscow are currently standing trial.

Ja Rule ‘Disappointed’ With Prison Sentence.

As Ja Rule prepares to begin his prison sentence in June, the Queens native is revealing that he is saddened by the turn of events that will land him behind bars for the next two years.

In an in-depth interview with MTV’s RapFix, Rule opened up about his regret. “I’m disappointed,” he explained. “I’m mad at myself.”

For Rule, the hardest part about going to prison will be leaving his family behind. The father of three will begin and end his sentence missing his teenage daughter Brittany’s last years in high school. “My daughter, she’s 15 right now,” he continued. “These are her last couple of years. She’s about to graduate from high school, and she’s going to college. She needs her father. My boys really need me right now too, as well as my wife. They need Daddy, and Daddy f—-ed up.”

Rule’s pending imprisonment is the first time that the 35-year-old has been incarcerated. As previously reported, the former Murder Inc. artist pleaded guilty to weapons possession charges, stemming from a 2007 arrest. The rapper was pulled over following a show at New York City’s Beacon Theater, when police discovered a loaded semiautomatic in his vehicle. His sentencing has been scheduled for June 8.

The ‘Always on Time’ creator is set to release two albums: ‘Pain is Love 2’ and ‘Renaissance Project.’ Both projects are scheduled to be released on June 7, one day before his prison sentence commences.

Paris Hilton, Boyfriend Attacker Jailed.

James Rainford, the man who attacked Paris Hilton and her boyfriend Cy Waits on Wednesday, has been sent to jail.

TMZ is reporting that Rainford got sentenced to 227 days in prison after he pleaded ‘no contest’ to misdemeanor battery.

Rainford was already on probation and the judge threw the book at him for violating the terms of his probation. He was arrested last October after trespassing on the socialite’s property and getting into an altercation with her security.

In addition to the jail sentence, Rainford was sentenced to three years informal probation and ordered to stay away from Waits once he’s released.
Hilton and Waits were walking into a Superior Court building in Van Nuys when Rainford attempted to grab Waits in the back of the neck. He was immediately subdued by a bodyguard and handed over to police.

After his arrest, Rainford explained to police that he was in love with Hilton and had her father’s permission to marry her.

Hilton and Waits were at the Van Nuys courthouse to testify in a case against Nathan Parada who broke into their home last year wielding a knife.

Report: Joran van der Sloot Stabbed 3 Fellow Inmates.

Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot has stabbed at least three other inmates during his incarceration at a Peruvian prison, a magazine reports.

The Peruvian magazine Panorama alleges that van der Sloot stabbed three prisoners, with at least one victim needing emergency medical care. The magazine also reports that the Dutchman is a heavy drug user who has “been put into solitary confinement several times but comes out even more angry,” a source told Panorama.Van der Sloot has been charged with murdering a Peruvian woman and with attempting to extort money from the parents of missing U.S. teen Natalee Holloway.

He is also a longtime suspect in Holloway’s 2005 disappearance in Aruba. He has been in police custody since June, accused of the May 30 slaying of Stephany Flores, a Peruvian business student who was found dead in van der Sloot’s hotel room in Lima on June 2.

The Dutch native’s lawyer, Maximo Altez, has not publicly addressed the latest allegations. Panorama reported that he has not denied his client was involved.

Meanwhile, Lifetime Television plans to premier the original movie “Justice for Natalee Holloway” on May 9. The latest film is a follow-up to the Lifetime Movie Network original “Natalee Holloway,” which premiered last year. This most recent installment will focus on the ongoing mystery of what happened to the Alabama teen, as well as van der Sloot’s alleged extortion of her mother and his arrest in Peru.

The film will be followed by a sneak peek of Lifetime’s new true-life series “Vanished With Beth Holloway.” The one-hour program, which will begin airing in its regularly scheduled time period on May 11, explores firsthand real-life mysteries of families who have been victimized by unsolved abductions, disappearances and unspeakable crimes.

According to Lifetime, Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, will offer “a uniquely empathetic point of view to the loved ones that have been left behind.”

US Soldier Gets 24 Years for Murders of 3 Afghans.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 24 years in prison Wednesday after saying “the plan was to kill people” in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers to kill unarmed Afghan civilians.

Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he initially intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal. Morlock will receive 352 days off of his sentence for time served.His sentencing came after he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and one count each of conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use at his court-martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.

The 22-year-old soldier is a key figure in a war crimes probe that implicates a dozen members of his platoon and has raised some of the most serious criminal allegations to come from the war in Afghanistan.He was accused of taking a lead role in the killings of three unarmed Afghan men in Kandahar province in January, February and May 2010.

Asked by the judge whether the plan was to shoot at people to scare them, or to shoot to kill, Morlock replied, “The plan was to kill people.”

Morlock was the first of five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade to be court-martialed - something his lawyer Geoffrey Nathan characterized as an advantage. Under the plea deal, Morlock agreed to testify against his co-defendants.

“The first up gets the best deal,” Nathan said by phone Tuesday, noting that under the maximum sentence, Morlock would serve no more than eight years before becoming eligible for parole.

Morlock told the judge that he and the other soldiers first began plotting to murder unarmed Afghans in late 2009, several weeks before the first killing took place. To make the killings appear justified, the soldiers planned to plant weapons near the bodies of the victims, he said.

Morlock’s lawyers previously indicated they would argue that a lack of leadership in the unit contributed to the killings.

“There was a lack of supervision, a lack of command control, the environment was terrible,” Nathan said Tuesday. “In his mind, he had no choice.”

During questioning by the judge Wednesday, Morlock said he had second thoughts about the murder plot while home on leave in March 2010, after the first two killings took place.

“It was really hard to come back,” he told Hawks, adding that he no longer wanted to “engage or be part of anything” like the killings that already had occurred.

Morlock said he didn’t voice his doubts to his fellow soldiers, however, and he went on to participate in the third killing in May.

Morlock also admitted to smoking hashish while stationed in Afghanistan, though he said he was not under the influence of the drug at the time of the killings. In addition, he admitted to being one of six soldiers who assaulted a fellow platoon member after that man reported the drug use going on in the platoon.

Morlock, his voice shaking at times, told the judge has had a lot of time to reflect on his actions in Afghanistan and ask himself “how I could become so insensitive and how I lost my moral compass.”

“I don’t know if I will ever be able to answer those questions,” he said, adding that he believes he “wasn’t fully prepared for the reality of war as it was being fought in Afghanistan.”

Earlier this week, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published three graphic photos showing Morlock and other soldiers posing with dead Afghans. One image features Morlock grinning as he lifts the head of a corpse by its hair.After the January killing, platoon member Spc. Adam Winfield sent Facebook messages to his parents saying that his fellow soldiers had murdered a civilian and were planning to kill more. Winfield said his colleagues warned him not to tell anyone.

Winfield’s father alerted a staff sergeant at Lewis-McChord but no action was taken until May, when a witness in a drug investigation in the unit reported the deaths.

Winfield is accused of participating in the final murder. He admitted in a videotaped interview that he took part and said he feared the others might kill him if he didn’t.

Also charged in the murders are Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes and Spc. Michael Wagnon II.

Seven other soldiers in the platoon were charged with lesser crimes, including assaulting.