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YORK - Bradlee Pratt, 20, formerly of York, has been sentenced to a term of 15-45 months in prison after being convicted of second degree forgery and felony failure to appear.

According to York County Attorney Candace Dick, a man in another county reported to the York Police Department that his bank had informed him someone else wrote a check on his account at the Walmart in York.

Dick said the man also told the police that earlier in the year, he was asked if a pregnant friend of his daughter could stay at his home because he was often not home as a long-distance truck driver.

"This pregnant young woman needed a place to stay and he agreed to let her stay there while he was gone," Dick said. "When he returned home, he kicked her out when he said other people had been living there, too. Later, he found out that the pregnant woman was a man."

Apparently, the man posing as a pregnant teen was identified as being Pratt.

Dick said Pratt stole checks from the man and used one to purchase $859 worth of stereo equipment at the Walmart in York. He was also recorded later, returning equipment and getting cash back.

"He had no authorization to take or pass that check," Dick told the court. "He also signed the owner's name to the check, but then he provided his own driver's license as identification."

Regarding the felony failure to appear, Pratt was ordered to appear for his jury trial in August but was a no-show. He was later found in Kansas, arrested and brought back to York County.

"He's spent 120 days in jail," Pratt's attorney, York County Public Defender Nancy Waldron told Judge Patrick Mullen.

"He's never been on probation as an adult and has never been convicted of a violent crime. He was taking classes to be a drug and alcohol counselor - and upon release from jail he plans to look for a job. He admits he has a drug problem and needs help. The only area (in the pre-sentence investigation) that indicates he is of high risk is with drugs. He wants to pay the victim back in full. He feels bad for what he did. He wants to be placed on probation and he understands he has a serious drug problem."

"He has had several terms of probation revoked," Dick told Judge Mullen.

"I oversaw a case in juvenile court, regarding him, where we had to close the case because he wasn't willing to participate and make progress. I also propose there are several inconsistencies in his statements to the probation officer (in the pre-sentence investigation) - he admitted to using lots of methamphetamine while he was in Kansas, but he also says he was working for an elderly man here in York during that same time.

Both statements can't be true. He also lied in court about going to treatment in Kansas - he didn't. He has trouble with the truth and he would be difficult to follow on probation. I also note that he left for Kansas, was arrested and brought back here involuntarily. And he's made no attempt to pay the victim back."

"I would like to see what you have to say, about your life and what's gone on here," Judge Mullen said to Pratt.

Pratt responded that he had nothing to say.

"It looks a little like you've given up," Judge Mullen responded.

"That's why I wondered what you had to say. It appears you are very addicted to drugs - methamphetamine in particular. The state's statements are compelling - I don't know what additional time will do for you but there's not much choice due to your lack of effort to change."

Pratt's sentence on each count was 15-45 months, but they will be served concurrently with each other. He was given credit for 120 days already served.

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YORK - Bradlee Pratt, 20, formerly of York, has been sentenced to a term of 15-45 months in prison after being convicted of second degree forgery and felony failure to appear. According to York County Attorney Candace Dick, a man in another county reported to the York Police Department that his bank had informed him someone else wrote a check on his account at the Walmart in York.

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Forgery is the act of replicating or the creation of a false document, signature, banknote, or work of art with the intent to defraud.

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Burglary is the unlawful entry into a building with the intent to commit a crime. Most burglars intend to commit larceny, though not always.

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Burbank police headquarters. (Times Community News )

A Burbank police officer is due in court Wednesday after he was arrested the day before by federal authorities on suspicion of taking part in an alleged extortion scheme involving his girlfriend's estranged husband.

Anthony Valento, a 17-year veteran of the Burbank Police Department, allegedly told his girlfriend Gayle Bassett's husband, who was not identified, that if he paid Bassett more than $100,000, Valento could get pending domestic violence charges against the husband reduced or dropped, the Burbank Leader reported. The money would be handed over as part of an anticipated divorce settlement, the federal criminal complaint stated.
LIVE CHAT: Reporter discusses federal arrest at 12:45 p.m.
Bassett's husband was arrested in September 2012 after allegedly throwing a bottle and bottle opener at Bassett, choking her and throwing her to the ground, according to the complaint.

Valento did not respond to the incident, but records show that he later reported Bassett's husband for multiple restraining-order violations, which resulted in additional charges being filed.

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Burbank officer arrested, accused of extortion scheme

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Burbank police headquarters. (Times Community News ) A Burbank police officer is due in court Wednesday after he was arrested the day before by federal authorities on suspicion of taking part in an alleged extortion scheme involving his girlfriend's estranged husband.

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Extortion is taking of property through threats. This is different than robbery, as robbery uses threats of immediate harm.

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"The money was raised by the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund and it was supposed to be used for investments that would return profits that would be used to support the Malaysian people," Leslie R. Caldwell, the assistant attorney general who heads the department's criminal division, said in an interview. "What happened instead was corrupt officials within 1MDB and others siphoned off a very large percentage of the money that was raised to the tune of $3 billion and used it in ways that provided absolutely no benefit to people in Malaysia other than themselves."

The forfeiture complaint, issued by a unit known as the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, represents the largest such case brought by the Justice Department. It comes at a time of heightened concern about secrecy, shell companies and illicit money flow around the world.

In the spring, the leak of the so-called Panama Papers cast light on secret offshore accounts held by politicians and other wealthy people from around the world. The Treasury Department announced recently that it would begin requiring banks to identify customers who use shell companies. And the department began a test program this spring requiring people who buy expensive properties in New York and Miami using cash and shell companies to report their actual identities.

The United States is among several governments, including Malaysia, Singapore and Switzerland, that have investigated 1MDB. The inquiries began last year after an investigative report in The New York Times. As part of a broader examination of the use of shell companies in high-end real estate in the United States, The Times traced the purchases of about $150 million in residential properties i n New York and in the Los Angeles area, as well as several works of art, to relatives or associates of Mr. Najib.

The Justice Department named three of those people in its filings. One, Riza Aziz, is the stepson of Mr. Najib and a Hollywood film producer. Another, a financier named Jho Low, is a longtime friend of Mr. Aziz and his family. The third is Mohamed Badawy al-Husseiny, a former official at a government fund in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that participated in deals with Malaysia's fund. Prosecutors also cited Khadem al-Qubaisi, who was an official at a related fund in the United Arab Emirates, as well as another individual who was an associate of Mr. Low.

The people named in the complaint have not been charged with crimes. The defendants in an asset forfeiture case are the properties that the government wants to seize. But an asset complaint does not preclude criminal charges.

Mr. Aziz's movie company, Red Granite Pictures, said in a statement that it was confident that "when the facts come out, it will be clear that Riza Aziz and Red Granite did nothing wrong."

Mr. Low, Mr. Husseiny and Mr. Qubaisi did not respond to requests for comment. In the past, representatives for Mr. Aziz and Mr. Low have acknowledged that their clients own United States properties but have said that they did nothing improper.

The complaint does not name Mr. Najib, but it does cite "Malaysian Official 1," described as a high-ranking government official who oversaw the fund and is a close relative of Mr. Aziz.

Tengku Sariffuddin, Mr. Najib's press secretary, said in a statement issued early Thursday that Malaysia would cooperate with "any lawful investigation." If any wrongdoing is proved, he said, "the law will be enforced without exception." He said the investment fund had been the subject of several investigations in Malaysia and that authorities found no crime was committed.

The immediate effect of the Justice Department's action is effectively to freeze the assets. The forfeiture process is lengthy. First, a court must make sure that no other interested party has a valid claim to the properties. Once true ownership is determined, the court must decide whether the money used to buy those assets was, in fact, earned illicitly. Only then can the government permanently seize the assets.

In the nearer term, the government's action may increase the political pressure on Mr. Najib, who has held on to power by halting investigations into the investment fund and by removing officials in his governing party who criticized him.

The 1MDB fund was created in 2009 as a "strategic development company" to invest the Malaysian public's money, primarily its oil wealth, in projects to benefit the country. Mr. Low helped set up an earlier version of the fund.

The Times reported last year that Mr. Low was secretly involved in major transactions with a small oil company called PetroSaudi International and Malaysia's public fund, which was led by Mr. Najib in his position as prime minister. Mr. Low then helped the prime minister's stepson buy property in the United States using shell companies and finance his movie company.

The Times investigation documented property transfers between Mr. Low and Mr. Aziz, including one on Hillcrest Road in Beverly Hills that was done behind the veil of a shell company, with no property transfer filed in public records, as well as the role that Mr. Low played in helping to finance Mr. Aziz' movie business.

That transaction was one of several using shell companies that were detailed in the Justice Department complaint.

The complaint minutely chronicled an odyssey of embezzlement, global money flow and lavish spending in the United States.

Prosecutors described several crucial transactions involving 1MDB, including the one with PetroSaudi. In that transaction, the complaint said, 1MDB officials and their associates stole about $1 billion that was supposed to be used for oil exploration. In addition, more than $2.5 billion was stolen through bond offerings for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013 that were managed by Goldman Sachs, the complaint said.

Then, according to prosecutors, Mr. Low and the others involved in the embezzlement wired hundreds of millions of dollars into the escrow account of the Shearman & Sterling law firm. Banks generally do not do due diligence on the clients of law firms, leaving that step to the law firms themselves.

PetroSaudi, Goldman and Shearman were not accused of wrongdoing. Those firms did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. 1MDB, the sovereign fund, was also not accused of wrongdoing and said in a statement that it was cooperating with investigators.

According to the complaint, from October 2009 to June 2010, more than $85 million of the stolen money was spent on gambling in Las Vegas, jet rentals, yachts and payments to other individuals.

It said that the $150 million used for luxury properties in New York and California came from the PetroSaudi deal, as did $44.8 million to buy a hotel in Beverly Hills and $35.4 million for a jet.

Money from the Goldman Sachs bond deals, prosecutors said, was used to purchase $130 million worth of artwork at auction, as well as an interest in the music rights of EMI. It also helped finance the production of "The Wolf of Wall Street," they said.

According to the complaint, money from the bond offerings was put into a shell company in the British Virgin Islands and then transferred in part to Red Granite Pictures. Mr. Aziz and Mr. Husseiny previously told The Times the financing for the movie had come from personal funds of Mr. Husseiny, the complaint notes, even though the money came from 1MDB.

In New York, the funds for the purchase of the Time Warner penthouse originated with 1MDB and were siphoned off from the PetroSaudi deal, the complaint said. The money was transferred through accounts in numerous countries but eventually landed in an account that Shearman & Sterling held for "client 37103 (TJL/RT MISCELLANEOUS INVESTMENT MATTERS)."

The Justice Department has brought other kleptocracy cases against the children of heads of state, including one involving the daughter of the president of Uzbekistan. In many cases, Justice Department officials have found that shell companies have facilitated illicit money flow and made stopping it more difficult. The Malaysian case, Ms. Caldwell of the Justice Department said, was no exception.

"This case is a perfect example of how shell companies can be used by criminals and kleptocrats and other people to steal money, hide money, launder money and make it very difficult for law enforcement to find out who controls that money," she said. "It's a big problem globally but it's also a problem in the United States."

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U.S. Targets $1 Billion in Assets in Malaysian Embezzlement Case

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"The money was raised by the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund and it was supposed to be used for investments that would return profits that would be used to support the Malaysian people," Leslie R. Caldwell, the assistant attorney general who heads the department's criminal division, said in an interview.

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Retired Officer Fatally Shoots Man During Robbery Attempt at Queens Bar

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The authorities said Andrew McClean had come into the Parkside Pub, in the Whitestone neighborhood, early on Monday with a gun and was trying to rob patrons.

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Robbery is the taking of property from a person's immediate possession by intimidation. It is different from larceny, as robbery uses force.

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Embezzlement is taking of property by someone to whom it was entrusted. A bank teller who takes money from the cash drawer is an example of embezzlement.

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Jessica Cruz-Torres, 29, is accused of taking money out of a bank account... (Palm Beach County Sheriff's...)

A Boynton Beach woman who police said was involved in a 2011 plot to defraud a woman of more than $80,000 was arrested on Tuesday.

Boynton Beach police arrested Jessica Cruz-Torres, 29, on charges of fraud and larceny on accusations of taking money out of a woman's bank account in 2011. Cruz-Torres was part of a multiperson operation to take money out of a dormant TD Bank account, police said.

Cruz-Torres, along with Island Dort, 28, and Lisa Ollis, 38, would withdraw money from an account at the bank with the help of their friend, Jacqueline Dillion, 29, who worked as a teller at the bank, according to police.

Police said the account had gone dormant in September 2011 because the victim, 64, hadn't accessed it in a year. When she did occasionally access her account, she did so mainly at TD Bank's Wellington branch, according to an arrest report.

In October 2011, Dillion accessed the account and performed an inquiry while working at a TD Bank at 1601 W. Boynton Beach Blvd. in Boynton Beach.

To reactivate the account, someone has to make a deposit, police said, so Dort went to Dillion's teller window at the bank and deposited $200.

The women would go to Dillion's window at the bank to sign off on the withdrawals, police said. In total, they took $87,581 from the account.

Ollis was the first to withdraw money, and took $53,281 from the account in four transactions, according to the report. The next transaction was three days later by Dort, who made a $9,870 withdrawal.

Cruz-Torres made the final withdrawal on Nov. 1, 2011, police said. Security footage from the bank shows Cruz-Torres and Dort in the bank where they withdrew $24,430, police said.

Some of the transactions were cash withdrawals and others were checks made out to Dort, Ollis and two other people.

Dillion, who kept most of the money for herself, paid the women a stipend, according to police.

Ollis told police she met Dillion through a man she knew from her work at Chili's, according to the report. He told her if she visited Dillion at the bank, they could take care of her financially.

Ollis told police she was paid $1,000 for helping withdraw money. Boynton Beach police identified her through surveillance footage.

Dort told police Dillion asked her to put the money in the account and to withdraw from it in exchange for $2,000. Dort told police the rest of the money went to Dillion, according to the report.

Police began investigating the crime in November. Cruz-Torres is the only person so far to be arrested in connection to the operation, while Dillion and Dort are listed as at-large in the report. It is unclear if Ollis is facing charges.

Cruz-Torres was booked and released from the Palm Beach County Jail on Tuesday.
kjacobson@tribune.com, 561-243-6547 or Twitter @katejacobson

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Boynton Beach woman involved in fraud investigation arrested, police say

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Jessica Cruz-Torres, 29, is accused of taking money out of a bank account... (Palm Beach County Sheriff's...) A Boynton Beach woman who police said was involved in a 2011 plot to defraud a woman of more than $80,000 was arrested on Tuesday.

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Larceny is the unlawful taking and carrying away of property of another person against his or her will with intent to permanently deprive the owner of it. It is divided into two sections, grand larceny and petty larceny. Grand larceny is the theft of something over $100, and petty larceny is the theft of something under $100.

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Vandalism, which is sometimes called malicious mischief, is willful destruction or damage to the property of another. It ranges from breaking windows and destroying cars to writing graffiti.

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A 24-year-old man was charged Monday with arson in connection with a rash of car and building fires across the Los Angeles area, authorities said.

Harry Burkhart was charged with one count of arson of an inhabited dwelling and will likely face additional charges as the investigation moves forward, said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Arson investigators counted 52 fires, most starting in parked cars, since Friday morning, but none since the man was was detained at 3 a.m. Monday, according to officials.

Burkhart is currently being held without bail.

"These were serious and potentially deadly crimes that needlessly endangered thousands of innocent lives," Villaraigosa told reporters. "These crimes will not be tolerated."

Burkhart is believed to a foreign national from Germany, according to Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck.

Authorities hope, and believe one arsonist acted alone, but will behave as though he did not until they know for sure, Beck said.

Burkhart's arrest came when a sheriff's deputy stopped a van near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood early Monday, said Los Angeles Fire Capt. Jaime Moore. The van matched the description of a vehicle believed related to some of the suspicious fires and the driver resembled a man seen in a surveillance video near the scene of one fire, he said.

The video showed a man who appears to be in his late 20s to mid-30s, with a ponytail, dark hair and a receding hairline.

No one was killed or seriously injured in the fires, though one firefighter and one civilian sustained minor injuries, said Los Angeles City Fire Chief Brian Cummings. Both he and the mayor estimated the fires caused some $3 million in damages.

Among the homes damaged was one that was once occupied by the Doors frontman Jim Morrison.

Eleven of the fires took place overnight, in the very early hours of Monday: nine within the city of Los Angeles and two in West Hollywood, fire department spokesman Cecco Secci said.

Cars were set on fire in Hollywood and Van Nuys, Moore said.

Los Angeles has not seen such a rash of fires since the city's riots in 1992.

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man charged with arson in case of california fires - cnn

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Man charged with arson in case of California fires

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A 24-year-old man was charged Monday with arson in connection with a rash of car and building fires across the Los Angeles area, authorities said. Harry Burkhart was charged with one count of arson of an inhabited dwelling and will likely face additional charges as the investigation moves forward, said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

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Arson is the willful and malicious burning of a person's property. If the burning is for the intent to defraud an insurance company, it is usually a separate crime.