Tag Archive for: Pasadena

District of Maryland | Pasadena Man Sentenced to Over Four Years in Federal Prison for Possession of Child Pornography


Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander sentenced Raymond Martin Shamer, III, age 21, of Pasadena, Maryland, late yesterday to 50 months in federal prison, followed by 45 years of supervised release for possession of child pornography.  Shamer admitted that he also distributed child pornography.  Judge Hollander also ordered that, upon his release from prison, Shamer will be required to register as a sex offender in the places where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”). 

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron and Special Agent in Charge James C. Harris of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore.

According to his guilty plea, from at least July 7, 2019 through June 24, 2020, Shamer used online accounts to communicate with others about child pornography, to distribute child pornography, and to collect child pornography.  Many of the files Shamer collected documented adults sexually abusing of infants and toddlers while they are bound and subjected to other violent conduct.

Shamer admitted that he used a secure communication application to upload images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and that he shared links to those images with a group of users with whom he engaged in group chat conversations.

On June 24, 2020, a search warrant was executed at Shamer’s residence and investigators seized Shamer’s cell phones and computer.  A subsequent forensic examination of the devices revealed a total of more than 1,000 images of child pornography on Shamer’s devices.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more…

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Pasadena police banking on phone-hacking tool to solve cold case murder


An engineer shows devices and explains the technology developed by the Israeli firm Cellebrite's technology on November 9, 2016 in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. It only takes a few seconds for an employee of Cellebrite's technology, one of the world's leading hacking companies, to take a locked smartphone and pull the data from it. / AFP / JACK GUEZ (Photo credit should read JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

An engineer displays devices developed by the Israeli firm Cellebrite in 2016. It takes only a few seconds for an employee of Cellebrite, one of the world’s leading hacking companies, to take a locked smartphone and pull the data from it. (Jack Guez/ AFP via Getty Images)

For years, a locked cellphone belonging to the suspect in a Pasadena 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…

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Hotels in Pasadena, San Diego among those hit in data breach – Los Angeles Times


Los Angeles Times

Hotels in Pasadena, San Diego among those hit in data breach
Los Angeles Times
An undisclosed number of people who used credit cards at 20 Hyatt, Sheraton, Marriott, Westin and other hotels in California, nine other states and the District of Columbia may have had their cards compromised as a result of hack of the hotels' payment …
Tampa hotel hit by data breachWTSP.com
Westshore area hotel hit by data breachTampa Bay Business Journal
Data Breach Impacts 20 Properties From Major Hotel ChainsSkift
Investorplace.com –89.3 KPCC –HEI Hotels & Resorts –Reuters
all 224 news articles »

“data breach” – Google News

Hillsides, a Pasadena child welfare agency, warns of data breach – The Pasadena Star-News

Hillsides, a Pasadena child welfare agency, warns of data breach
The Pasadena Star-News
PASADENA >> A Pasadena child welfare agency has warned of a computer security breach that may have exposed the personal information of nearly 1,000 clients and staff members. Hillsides, 940 Avenue 64, announced the data breach Wednesday.

“data breach” – Google News