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Tag: arrested
Lauren Boebert

Boebert Son Arrested, Booked On 22 Criminal Charges

Far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who is seeking the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. House seat presently held by the retiring Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), has faced a long list of controversies. Now,Newsweek is reporting that Boebert's 18-yeare-old son, Tyler, was arrested on February 27 and is "facing 22 charges," according to the Rifle, Colorado Police Department.

Newsweek's James Bickerton reports that Tyler Boebert was booked into the Garfield County Jail. On Facebook, the Rifle Police Department posted that he was arrested "after a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts in Rifle" and added that the charges include "four felony counts of Criminal Possession ID Documents - Multiple Victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, and over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses."

According to Bickerton, a custody document at the Garfield County Jail shows "four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, three counts of first-degree criminal trespass auto with intent to commit crime, four counts of criminal possession of ID documents, four counts of ID theft with intent to use, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, three counts of theft of less than $300 and one count of conspiracy to commit (felony)."

Rep. Boebert, first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020, is seeking a third term. The MAGA congresswoman has been serving in Colorado's Third Congressional District, but she decided that her chances of being reelected were better in the Fourth and switched to Buck's district.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Busted: Moms For Liberty Moralist Quits School Board After Shoplifting Arrest

Busted: Moms For Liberty Moralist Quits School Board After Shoplifting Arrest

This past Friday, Keri Leigh Blair, a Tennessee school board member backed by the far-right group Moms for Liberty, was arrested and charged with stealing over $700 of merchandise from a local Target. Oh, the morality! Blair resigned from her position on the Collierville Schools board on Tuesday, having served just over one year, saying she is leaving for “personal, family reasons.”

According to the Collierville Police Department, Blair is accused of stealing from Target by “skip scanning” items at the self-checkout on November 25, November 30, Deccember 3, December 6, December13, December 18, and December 20—seven times! Target alleges Blair made off with $728.61, and police say the chain “is prosecuting.”

This is just the latest example of book-banning moralist moms behaving badly. Around the same time that Blair was being investigated, a so-called “parental rights” activist in Pennsylvania was facing criminal charges of “assault, harassment, and furnishing minors with alcohol” at a birthday party she hosted in September.

The rot of this anti-education movement can be seen at the top as well. Recently, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler and her politically connected Republican husband, Christian Ziegler, have been embroiled in a scandal after a woman who’d been in a sexual relationship with the married couple accused Mr. Ziegler of sexual assault. In every instance, these holier-than-thou actors—who seek to censor our country’s racial history and attack LGBTQ+ children—demand that everyone submit to their narrow view of the world. Everyone except, of course, themselves.

As for the school board seat left vacant by Blair, the local ABC affiliate reports that state law dictates that the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen appoint a replacement who would serve until November 2024.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

South Carolina GOP Leader (And Her Mom!) Busted In Bizarre Bar Scuffle

South Carolina GOP Leader (And Her Mom!) Busted In Bizarre Bar Scuffle

A high-ranking member of the South Carolina Republican Party is now facing charges of third-degree assault and battery after both she and her mother were involved in a late December brawl at a bar owned by her family.

According to a Thursday report in The State — Columbia, South Carolina's flagship newspaper — South Carolina Republican Party political director Braylee Estep, 22, was booked at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway, South Carolina on Wednesday along with her mother, Michele Stalvey Estep, 53. Both women allegedly struck an unnamed victim with their fists while drinking at Stalvey's Watering Hole on December 23.

The State cited a police report which described the alleged encounter between Estep, her mother, Estep's boyfriend and two unnamed bar patrons. In the report, a man believed to be Estep's boyfriend allegedly made a victim and a witness "feel uncomfortable" by "hanging his arms over their shoulders," which prompted Estep to "shake her head and call the victim and witness vulgar names."

Then, according to the police report, the "victim and witness then decided to leave and the 'bickering' continued between the two parties in the parking lot." Even though the victim and witness were leaving, Braylee Estep reportedly followed them and started to "bang on the window of the vehicle." This caught the attention of Estep's mother and an unnamed "third suspect" to rally to her side and allegedly escalate the altercation.

"At some point one of the suspects grabbed a Stanley cup from the vehicle’s cup holder and began to bang it on the vehicle, placing dents into the vehicle," The State's report read. "An arrest warrant said that Braylee Estep and Michele Estep did strike the victim several times with their hands, causing injury." After driving away, the victim and witness called local police. Both women were released on January 3 after posting a $5,000 bond.

According to Estep's LinkedIn profile, she became the political director of the South Carolina Republican Party last August, after serving as the party's deputy political director since June of 2023. Before then, Estep was a regional field director with the Georgia Republican Party, and assisted with get-out-the-vote efforts for both Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp's 2022 campaign for reelection as well as former NFL star Herschel Walker's unsuccessful bid for the US Senate.

In addition to owning Stalvey's Watering Hole, Estep's family also owns the Conway, South Carolina-based Stalvey's Bait & Tackle, which The State reported is connected to the bar.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ex-Chicago Official Held In Pakistan

Ex-Chicago Official Held In Pakistan

By John Byrne and Aoun Sahi, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Former Chicago Comptroller Amer Ahmad has been taken into custody in Pakistan, where he apparently fled ahead of his sentencing in a federal fraud case in Ohio.

Ahmad was arrested at an airport in Lahore when he was trying to enter the country using a forged Mexican passport and a forged Pakistani visa, said Usman Anwar, director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in Punjab province.

“Our officers at the airport found that his passport and visa were forged,” Anwar said. “We also recovered his original American passport, which he tried to hide. Then we searched his history on Google and found that he was guilty of fraud in U.S. and wanted (by the) FBI.

“We have arrested him under (a) passport and visa fraud case, which carries a punishment of seven years of imprisonment in Pakistan.”

Ahmad’s apprehension comes about a week after his wife filed a request for an order of protection in Cook County in which she alleged he was seeking a fake passport to go to Pakistan.

Samar Ahmad said her husband called April 23 and told her to get him a fake birth certificate from Pakistan so he could get a passport. When she refused, Samar Ahmad said her husband “became irate and threatened that if I didn’t do this he intimated that he would ruin or hurt me,” according to the court document.

Samar Ahmad also said in the written request that she was “very concerned” her husband “will kidnap our children and take them to Pakistan.”

“He believes that (he) is not guilty (and) deserves a life with the children and repeatedly gets very angry if I say anything, abusive and slapped me when we had gotten into an argument and he became irrationally angry,” the request for an order of protection reads.

“He threatened to take my daughter and he told her that she would never see me or her siblings ever again and that they were going to see Allah,” the document reads.

The U.S. Marshals Service announced last week they were looking for Ahmad on an arrest warrant for violating terms of bail in the case, in which he pleaded guilty to participating in a kickback scheme while deputy state treasurer in Ohio before being hired by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as comptroller in 2011.

Ahmad pleaded guilty in December to bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering and wire fraud, months after he abruptly stepped down from his top job in the Emanuel administration. Ahmad was indicted weeks after he resigned.

Federal prosecutors in Ohio alleged while he was deputy state treasurer there, Ahmad gave state investment work to a former high school classmate in exchange for having $400,000 funneled to a landscaping company in which Ahmad was a part owner. An additional $123,000 was funneled through a friend and business associate of Ahmad’s, prosecutors said.

Asked about his former aide’s arrest Wednesday, Emanuel said he has been too busy with other issues to spend much time thinking about it.

“I’ve got to be honest, sorry about this, but let me give you this sense of reaction: I was thinking about plastic bags before Amer. I was thinking about petcoke regulations before Amer. I was thinking about how proud we all are of the Whitney Young basketball team, of their accomplishments on the court and in the classroom,” Emanuel said. “That all came before that, so, gives you some sense of perspective on it.”

After Ahmad was indicted, Emanuel brought in an outside law firm and an accounting business to audit his work for the city. A report issued by those firms last year said there was no indication Ahmad committed any wrongdoing at Chicago’s City Hall. Ahmad’s attorney declined to comment on reports of Ahmad’s apprehension.

afp.com / Arif Ali