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Ex-Doctor Gets Almost 6 Years For Craigslist Sex-Drugs Scheme

Ex-Doctor Gets Almost 6 Years For Craigslist Sex-Drugs Scheme

By Marwa Eltagouri, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — A former doctor was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 6 years in prison for trading prescription narcotics for sex on Craigslist.

In imposing the 5-year, 10-month sentence, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer called the wrongdoing by Joshua D. Baron “very serious and disturbing.”

“Mr. Baron was purchasing sexual favors for the drugs he knew people were addicted to and would do anything for,” the judge said.

Baron, who pleaded guilty in March to victimizing 16 individuals over a five-year period, apologized to his family, the court, and the community.

“I regret the embarrassment I’ve brought to my children,” he said in a shaky voice. “I apologize that their father is not truly a man they can fully look up to.”

Baron’s guilty plea came about three years after suburban Chicago authorities arrested him for attempting to trade drugs for sex with an undercover police officer.

Baron admitted in his plea that he provided thousands of doses of controlled substances to 16 individuals between 2006 and 2011 in exchange for sex and money. Baron would post advertisements offering to trade the prescription drugs on Craigslist, authorities said.

Authorities said Baron dispensed a total of 3,420 Adderall and Xanax pills, along with a host of other painkillers and controlled substances.

The individuals Baron made the exchanges with were never his patients, federal authorities said.

Baron was initially charged in January 2011 after a sting conducted by the Wilmette Police Department. He was charged federally in October of that year after a broader investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and Chicago Police Department, federal authorities said.

Baron was suspended from his job at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago after his arrest. His work focused on epilepsy and had ongoing trials in examining sleep symptoms in children with epilepsy, as well as studies to evaluate novel pharmaceuticals, the hospital’s website said.

Baron’s plea agreement provides for a sentencing recommendation of nine to 11 years in prison, authorities said.

Federal authorities said Baron voluntarily surrendered his medical license and federal drug registration in 2011.

Photo: Chika via Flickr

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Pregnant Woman Strangled, Boyfriend Beheaded In Craigslist Sex Meeting

Pregnant Woman Strangled, Boyfriend Beheaded In Craigslist Sex Meeting

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times

When Michigan police found the body of a 25-year-old man in a park last week, they had a macabre mystery on their hands.

The man’s name was Charles Gerard Oppenneer, and investigators think he was killed by an injury to his head.

The problem is they don’t know for sure what caused his death, because they still haven’t found his head. Police say he was decapitated after he was killed.

Then on Monday, the story turned even more disturbing.

Investigators in the town of Wyoming, a Grand Rapids suburb, released new details about the deaths of Oppenneer and his 18-year-old girlfriend, Brooke Slocumb, who was eight months pregnant when she also was killed last week. Slocumb’s unborn child did not survive.

The couple had arranged to meet with a stranger they’d met on Craigslist, police say.

Now their suspected killer, Brady Oestrike, 31, is also dead, having shot himself after crashing his car while fleeing police, officials said.

Slocumb’s body was in his trunk. Police had been looking for her since her boyfriend’s body was discovered a day earlier, July 16.

Investigators say Slocumb had apparently used emails to arrange to meet with Oestrike in a money-for-sex encounter that was supposed to happen at a park in Wyoming late on the night of July 12.

Wyoming Police Chief James Carmody told reporters Monday that Oestrike was supposed to be paying the victims for sex.

Instead, officials think Oestrike — who listed himself as a journeyman power lineman on the Facebook page under his name — killed Oppenneer and took Slocumb captive in his home.

“Investigators have recovered over 400 different items from the home, items that include restraints that would indicate that Oestrike held the victim Brooke Slocomb in captivity there for a period of time before he murdered her” by way of strangulation, Carmody said.

Also discovered in the basement: “Dozens of firearms, ammunition, numerous knives and other weapons,” as well as computers, cameras, and surveillance devices, Carmody said.

Oestrike had expressed strong opinions about gun rights on his Facebook page, on which he’d also written a cryptic poem in February about how “blood can mean death or indeed can mean life / And a man can be more when he has a good wife.”

Below the poem, Oestrike had posted an image from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies with the words, “Crazy people don’t know they are crazy, I know I am crazy therefore I am not crazy, isn’t that crazy.”

A photo on Facebook also showed Oestrike posing with swords.

Police were apparently about to serve a warrant on Oestrike’s home in connection with Oppenneer’s death and beheading when Oestrike drove off with Slocumb’s body in the trunk, leading to the police chase that ended with his apparent suicide.

Photo: Chika via Flickr

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Craigslist Rapist Pleads Guilty To More Crimes

Craigslist Rapist Pleads Guilty To More Crimes

By Amanda Marrazzo and Duaa Eldeib, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Charles Oliver, who was accused of raping eight women he met on Craigslist and other dating sites, pleaded guilty to two more counts of sexual assault Monday.

Convicted by a McHenry County, Ill., jury last month in the first case, Oliver calmly agreed to the plea deal in court this morning and now stands to receive a prison term of 20 to 93 years when he’s sentenced in May.

In exchange for his guilty plea, the state’s attorney’s office agreed to end the remaining cases against him and not prosecute him for any additional victims, should they be identified among the large volume of video footage confiscated from Oliver’s Woodstock home that showed him having sex with various women.

Oliver, 45, referred to Judge Sharon Prather as “Your Honor” as he said he understood the plea deal.

In the first case to go to trial, a jury last month found Oliver guilty of raping a 22-year-old woman he met on Craigslist. Police and prosecutors said Oliver met most of the women on Craigslist and agreed to pay them for sex.

The plea deal represents a shift in the defense strategy. Oliver’s attorney had requested separate trials for each of the eight women.

But prosecutors in the first case aimed not only to convict Oliver of raping the 22-year-old, but also to establish a pattern. In addition to the first victim, prosecutors put on the stand another woman Oliver was charged with sexually assaulting.

Both women gave similar accounts. They testified that Oliver drove them to his home then forced them into his basement, where he threatened them and become violent. He then took them upstairs to his bedroom, where he recorded them having sex, according to court testimony. They said that Oliver threatened to report them as prostitutes if they went to authorities. Police said they recovered multiple DVDs, as well as zip-ties and police scanners from Oliver’s home.

The case to which he pleaded guilty today involved the second woman, who testified at his first trial.

In one of the videos played for the jury during the trial, the second woman is heard saying, “No,” “Stop,” and “You’re scaring me.” Oliver later says, “I don’t have to listen to you. I paid you.” Before the video ends, Oliver says, “I’ve got the plates to your truck, and I’m gonna run it and hunt you down.”

The woman testified that, after the assault, she jumped out of his car, sought refuge in a nearby church and initially lied to police, saying she had been abducted from a parking lot. She testified she did this because she was afraid of being outed as a prostitute and feared Oliver would find her and hurt her.

At trial, Oliver’s attorney Mark Facchini called his dealings with the first woman a “business transaction” and said the woman did “what she was paid to do.” Oliver’s lawyers argued that he had no reason to force himself on the woman because she had already consented to have sex with him for money.

Following the trial, rape victim advocates lauded the conviction, which they said dispels the dangerous fallacy that someone who accepts money for sex does not have the right to say no.

Photo: Chika via Flickr

Accused Craiglist Killer, 19, Confesses To 22 Slayings, Report Says

Accused Craiglist Killer, 19, Confesses To 22 Slayings, Report Says

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times

A Pennsylvania teenager accused of killing a man she met on Craigslist has confessed to the slaying — and to killing more than 20 other people after joining a satanic cult at age 13, according to an interview she gave to a local newspaper.

The information in the interview could not be corroborated on Sunday.

Miranda Barbour, 19, reportedly had been married only three weeks when she and her husband, Elytte Barbour, 22, stabbed and strangled Troy LaFerrara, 42, after meeting up with him on November 11, according to police in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Both Miranda and Elytte Barbour, who wed in North Carolina, were arrested a month later in Pennsylvania. They are in custody and facing charges that include criminal homicide, assault and robbery, according to court records.

In a jailhouse interview published Saturday, the Daily Item in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, reported that Miranda Barbour admitted to killing LaFerrara and to being part of a satanic cult since she was 13 years old.

Barbour said she began killing people shortly after she joined the cult while living in Alaska and “stopped counting” when “I hit 22” slayings, according to the newspaper. Barbour’s attorney and Sunbury police could not immediately be reached for comment by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.

Sunbury Police Chief Steve Mazzeo told the Daily Item he couldn’t confirm her claims but said “we are seriously concerned and have been in contact with the proper authorities” in other jurisdictions.

A spokeswoman for the FBI, Carrie Adamowski, told the Los Angeles Times in an email Sunday that “the FBI’s Philadelphia division has recently been in contact with the Sunbury Police Department regarding Miranda Barbour and will offer any assistance requested in the case.”

Barbour reportedly told the Daily Item that she had participated in killings in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California, with the majority happening in Alaska.

“I feel it is time to get all of this out,” Barbour said, according to the newspaper, which reported that Barbour had requested the interview. “I don’t care if people believe me. I just want to get it out.”

Photo: Nick Sherman via Flickr