Category Archives: Victimless Crime Files

Victimless Crime File: Stoner Lured to His Death with Unreasonable Amount of Weed

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Let me set the scene. You’re a Juggalo who gets freaked out when one of your friends cuts the brake line of some schmo while you’re on your nightly vandalism spree. You do the right thing and let the cops know that your accomplice may be looking to hurt someone. Said accomplices then show up and with metal baseball bats asking you to come into the woods with them. Would you go?

Now what if they offered you two pounds of marijuana? Still no, right. But then again you’re not some “recreational weed smoker” are you?

Angered that a one-time friend had snitched to police, four Hazleton area men lured him to a remote part of Schuylkill County where they beat him to death with metal baseball bats, hitting him as many as 80 times, authorities say.

Police said the victim, Anthony V. Locascio, 21, who recently moved to Hazleton, and the suspects all knew each other and shared a devotion to a hardcore hip-hop group known for espousing violence.

After the beating, the men removed Locascio’s clothes and jewelry as part of their retaliation against him for ratting on a fellow follower of the hip-hop group, state police said.

[…]

During a news conference at the state police barracks in Frackville, Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman and state police investigators declined several times to identify the name of the hip-hop group. But a source close to the investigation later confirmed the group is the Insane Clown Posse, a Detroit band that Gombert, Foose and Locascio referred to on their MySpace pages.

This isn’t the only Juggalo related crime in the area recently:

In Monroe County earlier this year, two teens who described themselves as juggalos stabbed 21-year-old Michael Goucher to death, prompting Monroe detectives there to identify the juggalos as a local gang, according to published reports.

Now how’s this for for a victimless crime by some misunderstood mellow stoners:

An arrest affidavit says the suspects told state police they killed Locascio, whom they referred to as a snitch, because he recently went to Hazleton police and told them that he and an accomplice cut the brake lines to a vehicle owned by Robin Hannah. They also poured sugar in the gas tank, said police, who identified Hannah as the estranged husband of a friend of Locascio.

The incident led to a feud between Locascio and his friends.

According to the affidavit:

The suspects admitted they lured Locascio to the wooded area along Old Mill Road in East Union with the intention of killing him.

They told Locascio they were driving to the location to buy 2 pounds of marijuana. Once they got there, Locascio got out of the vehicle to smoke marijuana, and the four suspects got out and started hitting him with bats.

When Locascio fell to the ground, the suspects inflicted another 60 to 80 blows to his head and upper body. An autopsy revealed that he suffered numerous blunt-force injuries to the head, causing a fatal skull fracture.

District Attorney Goodman and state police would not talk about the hip-hop connection at their news conference.

”There may be some relation to a group,” Goodman said. ”At this point, we are not going to comment on that and the way the body was left behind.”

The news release does say: ”Retaliation against the victim for ‘ratting’ on a fellow follower resulted in the accused removing the victim’s clothes and jewelry after the brutal beating.”

Juggalos typically wear dark clothing, piercings and merchandise of the band Insane Clown Posse, or ICP. The band’s members are known for their painted faces and aggressive, often violent, lyrics. While some police have started identifying juggalos as a gang, followers consider themselves a family and the music a religion.

I hope that was some good weed. And what’s with the cutting brake lines of people? I though pot smokers weren’t criminals? Just one more isolated incident that doesn’t reflect on the drug culture I’m sure.

h/t Trench

Ending Drug Prohibition Won’t Remove the Drug Culture’s Criminal Element

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My crime compadre Trench emailed me this article because he knows I’m a sucker for a good doper story. Seems California’s medical marijuana industry has not created a safer environment for those that “need” pot to get their “medicine.” Far from it, gangs have simply moved into the quasi-legal marijuana dispensary business and brought their criminality with them:

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Thirty-one people were arrested during raids at 14 medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego County, effectively shutting down the storefronts, authorities announced today.

The raids culminated a five-month state and federal undercover operation that targeted people illegally selling the drug at the so-called medical marijuana collaboratives, said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

No medical marijuana patients were arrested in the undercover sting on Wednesday, Dumanis said.

“Let me be clear from the start. This investigation has nothing to do with legitimate medical marijuana patients or their caregivers,” Dumanis told reporters.

“The investigation to date shows these so-called businesses are not legal. They appear to be run by drug dealers who see an opening in the market in a way to make a fast buck.”

Twenty-three people were taken into custody in the city of San Diego, and eight in North County, authorities said.

Dumanis said most of those arrested will be prosecuted in state court, with two people charged in federal court.

An estimated 60 medical marijuana dispensaries are now operating in San Diego County, under the guise of helping people who are sick, Dumanis said.

“We’re not fooled and the public shouldn’t be fooled either,” the county’s top prosecutor said. “The state’s medical marijuana law and the

Attorney General’s written guidelines about medical marijuana do not allow the selling of marijuana for profit … to anyone.”

The state’s law allows patients who have doctor recommendations for marijuana to grow up to 24 plants or have someone grow them in their stead. That seems like a great plan to take the profit motive from pot dealing…but it didn’t.

Not to mention the fact that the whole medical marijuana thing is basically a scam, as alternative model turned wrestling diva turned S&M model turned soft-core web porner turned Internet neer-do-well Shelly Martinez proves in this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH5Po0ybCyA[/youtube]

Now that’s downward mobility! Martinez was at one time an employee with the WWE (until she was fired) and TNA (until she had a “contract dispute”) and has of late been appearing at porn conventions, selling dates with her on the Internet and appearing in a documentary where she claims that weed (snicker) saved her life. Yes, really.

The point being that legalizing medical marijuana didn’t drive out gang activity and it certainly didn’t do at least one pot smoker we know of any good. “But, Rob,” you’re about to say while desperately trying to get the disposable lighter you found on the street to work long enough to take your next bong hit, “if we just ended drug prohibition all the gangs would like, you know, have to get jobs and stuff. Like the Mafia after prohibition ended!”

Au contraire, mon petit stoner. The Mafia continued to be involved in various aspects of the alcohol industry from the union controlled shipping and distribution businesses to running nightclubs and bars. “Where’s your proof, square?” you cough out after finally getting the dirt encrusted DeJeep lighter to hold its flame long enough for you suck your artificial paradise from your commemorative Barack Obama bong.

I got your proof right here, hippy:

HOUSTON – The guy named Vinny with the Vandyke and Brooklyn accent looked out of place in the leafy Texas neighborhood of gated mansions.

That’s because this Vinny was Vincent Palermo – onetime Mafia star turned FBI informant – a guy who managed to vanish from the world of scungilli and Sinatra to recreate himself 1,400 miles away in the land of BBQ and the Texas two-step.

Palermo, with a new name, lives under a cloak created by the feds after testifying against the DeCavalcante clan, the Jersey-based Mafia family whose members believe they inspired “The Sopranos” TV show.

Of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Before he admitted taking part in four murders, extortion and a host of crimes, Palermo operated Wiggles, a strip club in Forest Hills, Queens.

The club was a kind of one-stop shop for drugs and prostitution, and then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani made it Public Enemy No. 1 in his drive to shut down sex clubs.

Today, Palermo controls the Penthouse Club and All-Star Men’s Club in Houston – strip joints city officials say are hotbeds of prostitution and drugs.

What’s that you say? The Mafia. Setting up shop in businesses that are on their face perfectly legal. Who would have told you pot smokers a thousand times that gangs simply don’t give up lucrative income streams because you get the law changed? Mark my words, the day pot is legalized and “Fun Time Shelly” sets up that weed cafe she’s always dreamed about is the day some Cholo grabs her by the tie-dye and tells you it’s time for your weekly “tax” and if you don’t pay you die.

In Jersey, where I’m from, stripping isn’t just legal, it’s encouraged. But One Percenter gangs still ran stables of girls they forced to dance at clubs and Newark was rumored to have clubs staffed with illegals forced into sexual slavery. I’ll reiterate that that was an industry that was legal. But it was also one that was full of people who often enough marginalized themselves. A legal drug industry will be no different.

In 2000 a One Percenter gang called The Breed were busted for rape and extortion of exotic dancers. The Breed forced the women to turn over their income and gang raped the women both as punishment and simply for fun. They did to bar owners in Long Branch, New Jersey what MS-13 will do to all legal pot shops if and when prohibition is repealed. Read and learn:

Members of a gang that prosecutors called ”the state’s pre-eminent outlaw motorcycle club” were arrested in raids early today and charged with extortion and the sexual assault of nude dancers at a juice bar in Long Branch.

The gang, the Breed, has controlled strip clubs, tattoo shops and other businesses with violence and terror, a federal indictment said.

[…]

Five of those named in the arrest warrants are being charged with extortion, a federal crime, stemming from the operation of the juice bar, the Stars and Bars, where members gathered. One of the club’s owners, a former gang member identified as David Snyder, was beaten and forced to sign over his business to other gang members after he tried to ”restrict sexual assaults on female dancers,” according to court papers.

The sexual assault charges were brought after four women who danced at the bar complained to the Howell Township police, John Kaye, the Monmouth County prosecutor, said. One woman said she had been chained to the floor for several days, forced to engage in oral sex with several men and beaten severely.

It should be noted that these are businesses that are legal, yet gangs were involved because of both the type of business (strip clubs and tattoo parlors) and the profit motive. Pot has a huge profit motive and, like strip clubs, a vulnerable population attached to it. Why would gangs leave that business alone if drugs were criminalized?

Look, I’m pro-sobriety but I’m neither for or against legalization. I am against legalization proponents making false claims about the benefits of legalization. The real benefits of legalization are overwhelmingly enjoyed by users like Martinez, and society still must shoulder the cost of an overburdened child welfare system, drug-induced poverty, and the various assaults, vandalism, and accidents that come along with drug use. Much the same as repealing alcohol prohibition didn’t stop drunken brawls, window breaking and traffic accidents legalizing drugs won’t stop those things either. And just as bars and people who work in them are in danger of being victimized by organized crime, so too will be the legal pot shops who will find gangs unamenable to the prospect of losing their cash cow.

The case for legalization is perhaps financial, as the recession stretches police forces too thin for many areas to concentrate on minor possession, and certainly there is a Libertarian argument for legalization. There is, however, no law and order argument for legalization. Users are not stable. People who aren’t stable are preyed upon (even you, Shelly Martinez) and eventually someone has to bail them out. Personally I’d support legalization if we still used drug use as evidence of unfit parenting, companies couldn’t be sued for not hiring users, and addicts who overdosed simply died in the gutter without eating up taxpayer money in the emergency room. But what legalization proponents want is for the rest of us to help maintain their fantasy world where there are no consequences for their actions. We will be responsible for keeping gang members from harming them. We will pay for their hospital bills. We will support their children if not them.

And we will deal with the criminal element they still support, while allowing them to pretend they have no moral culpability in those gangs’ continued existence.

Victimless Crime File: Tweaker’s Children Test Positive for Meth

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Drug users make terrible parents despite what pot smokers on various message boards like to claim while passing around old articles of mine and claiming I “just don’t get it man” while blowing pot smoke in the face of the toddler that they feed with a combination of food stamps and help from their parents.

Here’s yet another “mother” that put her desire to get high ahead of her children:

LAS CRUCES – A 26-year-old Vado woman has pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse.

Dona Ana Sheriff’s officers arrested Candice Holden on Dec. 20, 2008, after her two children, ages 2 and 3, tested positive for methamphetamine.

Sentencing is scheduled for a later date.

At the time of her arrest, Holden was pregnant. She has since given birth to an infant who was reportedly adopted by a family friend.

In April, the father of the two older children, Justin Kropf, asked District Judge Mike Murphy to rescind Holden’s visitation rights, which included daily, two-hour supervised visits administered by Families & Youth, Inc. Murphy denied Kropf’s motion, calling the visits with Holden “very necessary for their emotional benefit.”

Holden has been ordered to pay $50 a month in child support since February.

Last year, she pleaded guilty to a felony count of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

I’m sure the emotional well being of the children isn’t being served by allowing some tweaker to stumble in reeking of pipe residue, dirty laundry and sugar daddy and tell them “oh, mommy misses you…can I borrow the birthday money grandma gave you?”

But legalization proponents are quick to point out that when we legalize drug use crime will go down, because people just minding their own business like Candice wouldn’t have been arrested in the first place. Which will work out great for all the children of addicts right guys?

h/t DodiaFae from Pagans Against Child Abuse

Victimless Crime File: Krista Arceneaux French Kisses Random Six-Year-Old in Front of his Family

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I wonder why she thought this was a good idea? From the Fresno Bee:

Krista Arceneaux, 37, was arrested Wednesday night at The Pines bar, sheriff’s spokeswoman Erica Stuart said. She also is accused of fighting with officers, spitting on them and possessing marijuana.

Stuart said Arceneaux was outside the bar about 7:30 p.m. when she saw the boy crossing a parking lot, accompanied by his family. Arceneaux, who appeared to be under the influence, according to Stuart, ran to the boy, told him he “was sexy” and kissed him. Witnesses immediately confronted Arceneaux, who ran back into the bar. Both security and 911 were called.

“And the fight was on,” Stuart said. “She was screaming, making a scene.” Stuart said another woman who was with Arceneaux quickly “took off.”

When deputies arrived, Arceneaux denied kissing the boy, Stuart said, and as she was taken into custody, Arceneaux became violent and tried to kick out windows in the patrol car. As a deputy drove to the jail in Madera, Arceneaux repeatedly spit on him, Stuart said. Arceneaux also is accused of threatening the life of the deputy and his family.

The pot was apparently found on her while she was being booked. The reports say she is 37 but frankly that’s a hard 37. But I guess it’s worth it to look like you’re in your 50s to get drunk and high everyday right?

I will bet you anything that after sobering up she too is disgusted by what she did. Of course people will claim getting high/drunk doesn’t cause you to commit crimes but are we saying then that sans drugs and alcohol Arceneaux would have done the same thing?

Victimless Crime File: In-Home Nurse for Cancer Patient Arrives with Dime Bag,Tries to Leave with Two Diamond Rings

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Looks like someone didn’t check too deeply into Sheena Denice Thompson’s background before hiring her. As D.K.O.M.S. points out, her employer claims to have run a thorough check on her but one look at her drug and gangsta themed MySpace page should have disqualified her immediately. From Delaware Online:

An in-home nurses aide caring for a cancer patient was charged with stealing two diamond rings she found in a filing cabinet, Newark police reported today.

Sheena Denice Thompson, 23, of the 2100 block of Washington St. in Wilmington, was charged with felony theft, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police also found that Thompson was wanted on two outstanding warrants.

Thompson is being held in the Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution on $500 bail on two outstanding warrants. She was given $4,000 unsecured bail on the theft and drug charges.

Thompson is employed by Right At Home, at 1500 N. French Street in Wilmington.

Joe Bakey, owner of the company, said Thompson was hired as a nurses aide in December after a “thorough background check.” Police had earlier reported she was a nurse.

“We’re always focused on the safety and security of our clients,” said Bakey, whose company provides in-care assistance to seniors.

Her employment has not yet been terminated because the agency has not heard from Thompson.

“We don’t even know where she is at this point,” he said.

But I’m sure being the kind of person that walks around with a dime bag and a pipe in your purse has nothing to do with also being a thief and a liar.