Tag Archive for: case

Computer Whiz Stuck at Center of Documents Case

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One day in June of last year, at a time when federal investigators were demanding security footage from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Yuscil Taveras shared an explosive secret.

Taveras, who ran Mar-a-Lago’s technology department from a cramped workspace in the basement of the sprawling Florida property, confided in an office mate that another colleague had just asked him, at Trump’s request, to delete the footage that investigators were seeking.

Taveras later repeated that story to at least two more colleagues, who in turn shared it with others, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Before long, the story had ricocheted around the grounds of Trump’s gold-adorned private club and up the chain of command at Trump Tower in Manhattan, prompting Taveras’ superiors in New York to warn against deleting the tapes.

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But by then, Taveras had already balked at what prosecutors said was Trump’s request. Looking to steer clear of the investigation into whether the former president was hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, he told one colleague that he was unwilling to cross a line and potentially go to prison, according to another person with knowledge of the conversation.

Still, when he was summoned before a grand jury this spring, Taveras did not fully recount the incident. Only after prosecutors subsequently threatened to charge him for failing to tell all that he knew did Taveras shift course to become a potentially important witness in the case.

Facing indictment this summer, Taveras replaced his lawyer, who was being paid by Trump’s political action committee and also represented one of the former president’s co-defendants. Taveras then returned to the grand jury and offered a more detailed version of events, recounting how he had been asked to delete the surveillance footage. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to charge him.

This account of Taveras’ turnabout, drawn from court records and interviews with nearly a dozen people who know him and are involved in the matter, reveals new details of the critical if at first reluctant role he played in helping investigators develop…

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Southern District of Texas | Gymnastics coach gets max in disturbing child pornography case

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GALVESTON, Texas – A 55-year-old McKinney resident has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for transportation of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.

Darren Frank McCoy pleaded guilty Dec. 1, 2022, admitting he was previously a gymnastics and cheerleading coach in Texas and Alabama. He had recorded teens in various stages of undress without their knowledge or consent and had unlawfully transported those images and videos as well as disturbing images of child pornography.

Today U.S. District Judge Jeffery V. Brown ordered him to serve a total of 240 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by a 10 years of supervised release. At the hearing, the court heard from one woman whom McCoy recorded while she was a minor. She discussed how her life has been seriously impacted by McCoy’s conduct, describing how he stole her childhood experiences without her even knowing it and that she feels rage, anger and sadness and lack of empathy toward him. Another victim described how McCoy sexually abused her from the time she was 12 until the age of 18. She detailed how she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.  McCoy was a gymnastics coach to these women.  

“Darren McCoy is the definition of a predator,” said Hamdani. “We encourage our children to engage in sports, believing that they will be safe when doing so. Instead, these athletes were betrayed. This so-called coach surreptitiously recorded teens and sexually abused a minor for several years. Hopefully, knowing the only bars he will see now are behind a federal prison cell will give his victims some long-awaited peace.”

On Nov. 30, 2019, McCoy had been on a cruise ship which docked in the Galveston Port of Entry. Authorities sent him to secondary inspection after learning of a prior child pornography investigation from 2015.

There, they found images of child pornography on his laptop which led them to seize other electronic devices including his phone which also yielded numerous pornographic images.

They also found nine videos on McCoy’s flash drive which appeared to be taken with a hidden camera. These videos, which appeared to be taken approximately a decade…

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Google PassKey Next Gen Security Eliminates 2FA & Sim Swap Scam | How To Use Feature & Sign In Now

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Police Banking on Phone-Hacking Tool to Solve Cold Case

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(TNS) — For years, a locked cellphone belonging to the suspect in a Pasadena, California, homicide sat in an evidence room as investigators sought a way to get around the device’s security measures.

Police might have finally caught a break.

Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite has released a software update with a “Lock Bypass” feature that could allow police to access the suspect’s locked Samsung g550t phone and retrieve any evidence about the December 2015 slaying, according to a recently filed search warrant application.


As smartphones have become ubiquitous, law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have recognized their potential usefulness in criminal investigations — a vast trove of personal information about whom the users communicate with, where they shop and where they travel.

But police departments’ attempts to access phones have often put them at odds with companies such as Apple and Samsung, which market their devices’ built-in security and privacy to digital-savvy users.

It’s not clear from the warrant in the Pasadena case if investigators were able to bypass the phone’s passcode lock using the Cellebrite program or what, if any, data they extracted. But in an affidavit supporting the warrant, a Pasadena homicide detective wrote that he learned about the update in mid-January from a computer forensic examiner assigned to the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory.

“In January 2023, the Cellebrite program successfully bypassed the lock on a Samsung cellular telephone, for an unrelated investigation, with the new software update,” said the warrant, which seeks records from a month before the incident through Nov. 18, 2015, the date of the suspect’s arrest. “This search warrant seeks permission to search and seize records that may be found on [the suspect’s] cellular telephone in whatever form they are found as it relates to this homicide investigation.”

The simmering debate over cellphone privacy first spilled into the mainstream in 2016 after a mass shooting in San Bernardino.

At the time, Apple was resisting the FBI’s demands that it help unlock the iPhone 5C belonging to the shooter, Syed Rizwan…

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