Tag Archive for: Trial

Day five of Andre McDonald’s murder trial over wife’s death

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Air Force Major Andre McDonald faces life in prison if found guilty of killing his wife, Andreen McDonald, in 2019.

SAN ANTONIO — The accused killer’s former boss took the witness stand on day five of the Andre McDonald trial, revealing new insight into the U.S. Air Force major’s behavior.

Andre McDonald faces life in prison if found guilty of killing his wife, Andreen McDonald, in 2019. His trial started Monday.

His former supervisor from Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland testified Friday and described the defendant’s demeanor when news broke about Andreen’s disappearance.

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Chetelat served as McDonald’s superior officer in the Cyber Warfare Unit at Lackland Air Force Base.

Chetelat visited McDonald at his home on March 1, 2019, the day Andreen was reported missing. He testified that he came to check on McDonald to see if he needed anything and brought McDonald some fast food. Chetelat said he wanted to make sure he was being treated fairly, focusing most of the conversation on his family’s safety. 

During the three-hour visit, law enforcement was present and documenting evidence as a result of a search warrant. He described McDonald as “calm and leveled” at the time. 

“I found it potentially peculiar. By mirror imaging I thought I would probably be bouncing off the walls, Chetelat said.

After McDonald’s arrest on March 3, Chetelat says McDonald started working from home three days a week. He also testified that McDonald never expressed a desire to help search for Andreen.

The five-month search for Andreen involved the multiple community-led efforts and organizations.

Clifton Klabunde also took the stand, recalling the moment he came across human bones in a rural field of north Bexar County. 

Klabunde…

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Hacker Accused of Downloading Social Security Numbers Stands Trial

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The trial is underway of an accused hacker who prosecutors say downloaded the personal information of 100 million Capital One customers, including 140,000 Social Security numbers.

According to the New York Times, the defendant is a former Amazon employee who claimed she was doing legitimate research. She’s been charged with ten counts of computer fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft, and the trial is taking place in federal court in Seattle.

“They are interpreting a statute so broadly that it captures conduct that is innocent and as a society, we should be supporting, which is security researchers going out on the internet and trying to make it safer,” the woman’s lawyer told the newspaper.

The U.S. attorney, however, claims that the woman was “motivated both to make money and to gain notoriety in the hacking community and beyond,” according to a legal filing reported by the newspaper.

In other news related to Social Security-involved crimes:

A sixty-nine-year-old West Virginia woman has pled guilty to charges of theft of government benefits and making materially false statements to federal agents.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia, the woman has admitted that she collected Social Security benefits meant for a deceased relative. The collections took place over a four-year period between 2016 and 2020, and she collected $46,356 in federal benefits.

The woman also, per the prosecutors, has admitted that she lied to federal investigators, first lying that she was her sister, and then claiming that she would be out of town for a month. She is scheduled to be sentenced in September, facing a maximum of fifteen years in prison.

And in Indiana, a woman was accused of stealing nearly $70,000 in Social Security funds that were meant for her deceased sister, as reported by the Greenfield Reporter, citing a Social Security Administration (SSA) report.

The woman was charged with a Level 5 felony count of theft and a Level 5 felony count of welfare fraud.

Per the newspaper article, the woman “had a scheme to defraud the Social Security Disability Benefits Program.” After her sister passed away, the woman did not notify…

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Accused Capital One Hacker Stands Trial for Fraud and Identity Theft

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Just as Amazon stores millions of physical goods in a dizzying array of warehouses, Amazon Web Services hosts vast amounts of data for other companies that rent space on its servers. Among its customers was Capital One.

In early 2019, several years after she stopped working for Amazon Web Services, Ms. Thompson searched for its customers who had not properly set up firewalls to protect their data. “Thompson scanned tens of millions of AWS customers looking for vulnerabilities,” Mr. Brown wrote in a legal filing. By March, she had discovered a vulnerability that allowed her to download data from Capital One, the prosecutor added.

In June 2019, Ms. Thompson sent online messages to a woman and disclosed what she had found, legal filings said. Ms. Thompson added she had considered sharing the data with a scammer, and said she would publicly reveal her involvement in the breach.

“I’ve basically strapped myself with a bomb vest,” Ms. Thompson said in copies of the online chat that were included in court records, referring to her plan to publicly release the data and expose herself.

The woman suggested that Ms. Thompson turn herself in to the authorities, prosecutors said. A month later, the woman contacted Capital One and told the bank about the breach. Capital One informed law enforcement officials, and Ms. Thompson was arrested in late July 2019. If convicted, she could face more than 30 years in prison.

“The snapshots submitted by the government are an incomplete and inaccurate portrayal of a life more fairly described as one of survival and resilience,” Mohammad Ali Hamoudi, a lawyer representing Ms. Thompson, and other members of her legal team wrote in a filing. Ms. Thompson had sought mental health treatment, they added, demonstrating her resolve to confront her problems.

In 2020, Capital One agreed to pay $80 million to settle claims from federal bank regulators that it lacked the security protocols needed to protect customers’ data. The settlement also required the bank to work quickly to improve its security. In December, Capital One agreed to pay $190 million to people whose data had been exposed in the breach, settling a class-action lawsuit.

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Josh Duggar trial: Federal investigator details what was found on computer

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by: C.C. McCandless, Nexstar Media Wire

Posted: / Updated:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — On Friday afternoon at the Western District of Arkansas courthouse in Fayetteville, the prosecution and defense teams each concluded their questioning of a U.S. Department of Justice computer forensics expert.

At 5 p.m., Judge Timothy L. Brooks gave the jury the option of leaving for the weekend, or continuing on in order to finish the testimony of High Technology Investigative Unit (HTIU) Director James Fottrell. The jury opted to let him conclude his time on the stand.

Duggar’s lead defense attorney, Justin Gelfand, continued his cross-examination of the witness when the jury returned from lunch shortly after 1:30 p.m.

He brought up varied points, noting that a USB flash drive that was plugged into an HP computer was never seized or found by agents during the search warrant executed at Duggar’s car lot in November, 2019. Forensic evidence shows that a USB flash drive containing two Word documents and a Powerpoint file was inserted into the HP at some point. Later, on redirect with prosecuting attorney William Clayman, the subject circled back to that missing item.

  • Josh Duggar’s defense attorney Justin Gelfand in federal court giving opening statements in the Josh Duggar federal child porn trial. | Artist: John Kushmaul
  • Sketch of Josh Duggar in federal court for his child porn trial | Artist: John Kushmaul
  • Sketch of a witness giving testimony in the Josh Duggar federal child porn trial. | Artist: John Kushmaul

Defense attorneys for Duggar have argued that someone else downloaded or placed the child pornography onto the 33-year-old’s work computer, noting that no child pornography was found on Duggar’s phone or laptop.

But federal prosecutors have detailed logs showing, minute by minute, the activity on Duggar’s computer that alternated between him sending personal messages, downloading child porn and saving pictures of notes.

On Thursday,…

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