James Halstead Likes to Date Rape His Business Partners, Steal Their Money

Posted on May 25, 2008 by Rob Taylor

Breitbart has video of this awful story from California where 61-year-old James Halstead tried to drug former Olympic gold medalist Oksana Grishuk during what she believed was a business meeting to discuss opportunities to use her as a spokesmodel for a line of vitamins. An arrest warrant has been issued for Halstead who is at this point on the lam:

SANTA ANA, Calif.â€”Former Olympic ice dancer Oksana “Pasha” Grishuk said Friday she began to feel shaky, her lips went numb and she feared she might die after consuming a drink authorities say a man meeting with her for dinner had spiked with a date-rape drug.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist said James R. Halstead of Santa Ana encouraged her to order a drink as they waited for a dinner table at the posh St. Regis Monarch Beach Hotel in Orange County on April 12. He then encouraged her to finish it, she said, but she only took a few sips before the two moved to the dining room.

Halstead, 61, was charged Wednesday with one felony count of administering a drug to Grishuk with the intent of having sex with her. He remained at large Friday, his whereabouts unknown.

A message left at Halstead’s home was not immediately returned. David Lee Casterline, an attorney who has represented him in civil cases, did not immediately return a call for comment and it couldn’t be determined if he has retained a criminal attorney.

It goes without saying if you run into Halstead don’t go out for drinks with him.

Halstead has a shady history Grishuk apparently didn’t know about including a conviction for fraud in the 90s and was he just named, but not charged, in a case against his former lawyer and business partner Jeanne Rowzee who stole millions of dollars from clients in an investment scheme:

Jeanne M. Rowzee, an Irvine securities lawyer accused of bilking scores of individuals of more than $20 million in a sophisticated investment scheme, was arrested at her home Tuesday on federal wire fraud charges.

FBI agents picked up Rowzee at 2:55 p.m., hours after she agreed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana to pay about $66 million in compensatory and punitive damages to plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit accusing her and Santa Ana insurance salesman James R. Halstead of taking their money.

[…]

The lawsuit is among at least half a dozen filed in state and federal courts accusing Rowzee and Halstead of promising investors returns of as much as 40% in an investment strategy usually reserved for hedge funds and other major Wall Street players.

More than 80 investors allege that the pair took in tens of millions of dollars from 2004 to 2006 but invested none of it in the private investment in public equities, or PIPEs, they touted.

FBI Special Agent Brad Howard’s review of Rowzee’s financial records confirmed that, according to an affidavit he filed with her arrest warrant.

“Instead of investing the money as promised, Rowzee would use victims’ money to make phony investment return payments to other victims, for her own personal use, and for the personal use of others involved in the scheme,” he wrote.

He estimated there were 150 victims with total losses exceeding $20 million.

Rowzee is accused in the civil lawsuits of stashing much of the investors’ money in offshore banks, including $2 million she allegedly wired to a former client described as “a fugitive hiding in Brazil.”

Halstead allegedly blew millions of dollars on jewelry, frequent strip-club visits and two houses with panoramic views of Las Vegas, according to the suits. He also had a yen for top-end sports cars, including a 605-horsepower Porsche Carrera GT for which he paid $368,000, according to a dealership’s sales records.

Halstead, 61, has not been charged. He declined to comment on Rowzee’s arrest or whether prosecutors might also charge him.

“They are going to do what they’re going to do,” he said.

Since Rowzee has set up accounts for fugitives before, I assume Halstead has either fled, or is fleeing, the country to some nation where his former business partner set up an off shore account.

Looking down the barrel of federal charges, it looks like Halstead decided to rape Grishuk as his last hurrah in the States before taking off. I guess it pays to Google your business partners.

The drug he tried to use on Grishuk is Nimetazepan which is legal in Europe and Asia but banned here. I guess that’s a clue as to where he might be fleeing.

Victimless Crime File: Convicted Sex Offender Uses Pot to Lure Boys

Posted on May 24, 2008 by Rob Taylor

In the occasional comment on a post the young pot head will find my harsh judgement of adults who get high (often with teens) perplexing. In fact one of the things I find most objectionable about drug culture, especially marijuana culture, is the lack of boundaries between adults and children leading to inappropriate relationships.

Though many of these adults are themselves stunted by their years of drug use, there are as many who have more sinister reasons to involve themselves in the drug culture. Take Michael Wayne Ingram:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Davidson County grand jury Friday returned a 45-count indictment against a convicted sex offender who was arrested during a traffic stop.

Five boys, ages 12 and 13, were in the car with Michael Wayne Ingram. Police stopped him in December after they said he was driving erratically.

Ingram was charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors, driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and violating the sex offender registry requirements, according to a Metro police news release.

Investigators said interviews with the boys led to other victims and the 45-count indictment. Among the 45 counts in the indictment are: Three counts of child rape, four counts of aggravated sexual battery, three counts of sexual battery, and two counts of attempted aggravated statutory rape.

He is also accused in 15 counts of giving marijuana to seven boys on different occasions. He is indicted on charges of DUI, violation of the open container law, possession of drug paraphernalia, reckless endangerment as well as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and violation of the state’s sex offender registry requirements.

Ingram gained access to boys through smoking pot. He raped them. They continued to hang around him because he pumped them full of drugs, drugs that made them compliant.

That’s what most adults who are dispensing pot to young people have in mind, making them compliant. That’s one reason why legalized or not smoking pot will never be a 100% victimless crime.

Mom of 4 from The Dreamin’ Demon forums found this story.

Jamel Deshard McQueen: Worst. Babysitter. Ever.

Posted on May 24, 2008 by Rob Taylor

Floridian Jamel McQueen was just taking a walk with a 10-month-old in a stroller, minding his business when Sheriff’s deputies tried to serve him with a warrant. He decided to use the baby as a distraction, and pushed the stroller into the street:

TAMPA – A 19-year-old man pushed a baby carriage into a street while trying to avoid a deputy serving an arrest warrant, according to a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office report.

About 1:45 p.m. Thursday, a deputy saw Jamal Deshard McQueen pushing a 10-month-old baby along 15th Street. The deputy had an arrest warrant for McQueen regarding an armed burglary last week.

He yelled for McQueen to stop. Instead, McQueen pushed the stroller into 15th Street and ran to a wooded area, the deputy wrote in a report. The baby was not injured.

Sheriff’s dogs tracked down McQueen, and he was arrested. He faces charges of child neglect and resisting arrest without violence as well as the warrant charges of burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

McQueen was being held at Orient Road Jail. No bail had been set.

I’m betting he wouldn’t have wanted to make bail anyway. There’s an angry mother somewhere looking for some one on one time with McQueen.

h/t Crime Scene KC

In Defense of Rachael Ray: LGF Sets Its Sights on a New Victim

Posted on May 23, 2008 by Rob Taylor

Charles Johnson of LGF likes to make some strange accusations about his fellow “anti-Jihad” travelers at very inconvenient times. Like when he called the Born-Again Christian Lionheart a neo-Nazi for voicing tepid support for a movement to reform the BNP. That was right when the British government was looking to pin hate crime charges on him.

Then there was of course the time he single-handedly destroyed the credibility of of a fledgling anti-Jihad group, The Center for Vigilant Freedom, by insinuating they were Nazis because some of their members might have attended a conference where other attendees might have had ties to people who might be Nazis.

That bit of logic was strange indeed since most of his evidence came from Communist bloggers, but none dare question Charles Johnson’s ties to violent Marxists. The charges from Johnson also came at a time when a vicious attack on counter Jihad activists by radical leftists was being ignored by all the major news organizations, and LGF.

Now Johnson is attempting to smear another individual with false charges. This time it isn’t a political group or controversial blogger. It’s food network star Rachael Ray:

I didnâ€™t believe this story when people first started emailing about it; but sure enough, its true. Dunkin Donuts, the venerable old fried dough seller, is the latest American firm to casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the kaffiyeh, via Rachael Ray: Dunkinâ€™ Breakfast Choices.

I’m with The Jawa Report on this one because I don’t see it. In fact if you look closely at the scarf pattern you’ll see a Paisley style design, the kind you see on bandannas. I don’t think there are Paisley kaffiyeh. Frankly Charles Johnson doesn’t either. But judge for yourself:

See the pattern on it? Looks suspiciously like a scarf from Lane Bryant to me. What it doesn’t look like is this:

See how the above doesn’t look like a scarf from Lane Bryant?

Are we on the right really at the point where all black and white scarfs are a secret show of solidarity with terrorism? Do we believe that all celebrities are so stupid as to have themselves filmed in one and not know what it means? Rachael Ray makes a living being liked by Americans of all political stripes and we’re supposed to believe that the people around her would allow her to create this sort of controversy?

The worst part of the attacks on her intelligence ala Michelle Malkin is the naive idea that Rachael Ray just shows up on set to do a commercial in her own clothes, and that a team of P.R. people doesn’t vet her wardrobe. Even more naive is the idea Dunkin’ Donuts would allow her to make such a controversial fashion statement on their dime.

As Malkin herself points out, Dunkin’ Donuts has made efforts to reach out to conservatives with some of their policies, a smart business decision that keeps them in competition with liberal favorite Starbucks. But according to Johnson and his Internet lynch mob the socially retarded Ray and the clueless corporate goobers at Dunkin’ Donuts are too stupid to get the meaning, and consequences, of that evil scarf. Not like we righty bloggers! It’s the kind of narrative popular with people who need to fuel their sense of self-importance with slanderous attacks on the intelligence and morality of others.

The worst part about LGF’s nonsense: he stole it from Atlas Shrugs and didn’t credit her. She had the same (asinine) analysis on May 18th, and Johnson put his story up today. Stay Classy Chuck. And I love Atlas Shrugs, but c’mon Pam. Really?

I have a white bandanna with a black pattern on it, am I also sporting “Jihad Chic” when I wear it? Sorry kids, but this whole “controversy” seems a little too much like nutrootery to me. We can do better.

I proudly support Rachael Ray, in whatever it is that she does. But she is a really bad tipper.

“Recent Muslim Convert” Tries to Detonate Suicide Bomb in British Restaurant

Posted on May 22, 2008 by Rob Taylor

Gateway Pundit has been following this since this morning, but I held off posting until we got the goods on the bomber. As one would expect, the animal rights activists theory put forward by some turned out to be completely wrong.

From Sky News:

Police have confirmed the man arrested over an explosion in Exeter was a recent Muslim convert who had been “preyed upon and radicalised”.

An armed operation is under way in Plymouth in connection with the blast.

Sky’s home affairs correspondent Mark White said the situation was “still unfolding” at a residential property.

Devon and Cornwall Police named the arrested man as 22-year-old Nicky Reilly.

The blast happened after he walked into the Giraffe restaurant at the Princesshay Shopping Centre at about 1pm.

Officers said he suffered lacerations to his eye and some facial burning.

Nobody else was injured in the blast which happened when the recently opened shopping centre was crowded with shoppers.

Deputy Chief Constable Tony Melville said: “Our investigation so far indicates Reilly, who has a history of mental illness, had adopted the Islamic faith.

“We believe despite his weak and vulnerable illness he was preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of.”

He confirmed that armed police had raided an address in King Street, Plymouth, linked to Reilly and were currently searching the premises.

Islamists preying upon the mentally ill to produce suicide bombers is a no brainer. The west has no shortage of depressed teens and other angst ridden individuals who could be easily convinced to carry out heinous murder/suicides like this. Luckily in this case no one but the bomber was hurt and British Law Enforcement is conducting operations now to find the soulless monster who convinced some crazy guy to try to murder dozens of innocent people. I hope they find them quick.

The Infidel Bloggers Alliance has more. Atlas Shrugs points out that the recent courthouse bombing here was a similar construction as the Exeter bomb.