- Boy, that de-escalated quickly. Not so long ago, California real
estate developer Kelly Gearhart was honored as his city's citizen of the year.
Now, he’s being sentenced to 14 years in prison for bilking investors who
poured millions of dollars into failed development projects. Where did this all
go wrong? Right around the time this scumbag committed wire fraud and laundered
money, that’s when. He finally pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and money
laundering as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors and this week, Los
Angeles federal Judge Otis Wright sentenced Gearhart, who now lives in Ohio, following
moving testimony from s investors who said the developer robbed them of their
savings and ruined their lives. "Kelly Gearhart is a thief and a
liar," said LeNeya Ross, who said she and her husband lost $85,000 they
invested in one of Gearhart's projects. "He is the greedy one who deserves
to lose all his money and freedom. That's what he took from the investors and
their heirs." Gearhart was a greedy scumbag in his criminal exploits,
bilking more than 250 investors out of at least $15 million, federal
prosecutors said. As part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Gearhart
admitted selling the same lots in a real estate project to multiple investors,
telling them that they would be paid back with interest. He also used those the
same lots to get bank financing and claimed that he was trying to dig himself
out after he got caught up in the 2007 housing collapse. Firdaus Dordi,
Gearhart's attorney, told the ultimate tale of a bad gambler who always thought
he “would somehow find his way through this.” Gearhart did ultimately find a
way out, but it involves a federal prison stint and using cigarettes as
currency for the next decade or so……..
- You can take the criminal out of his element and put him
in the NFL, but you can't excise those felonious tendencies from his character.
One might think that giving a guy a chance to make hundreds of thousands - and
eventually millions if he’s good enough - of dollars playing football would be
incentive enough to lure a guy like Houston
Texans rookie defensive tackle Brandon Ivory away from committing crimes for a
living, but one would be wrong. Ivory and Nicholas Gerald Gibson III were
charged with two counts of first degree burglary after being taken into custody
and questioned by Tuscaloosa Police Department investigators following a
break-in at a home Wednesday morning. Ivory was sent to the Tuscaloosa County
Jail pending a $120,000 bond after he and his fellow Mensa wannabe allegedly
kicked in the back door of the home, one armed with an assault rifle and one
armed with a knife, assaulted one victim and took cash and two iPads. Yes, an
undrafted rookie free agent trying to earn a roster spot isn't flush with cash,
but Ivory has to have enough cash to buy his own iPad, right? Apparently not.
"The Houston Texans are aware of the police report regarding defensive
tackle Brandon Ivory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama," the Texans said in a
statement after the arrest. "At
this time we will have no further comment until we gather all the relevant
facts." The case is fairly linear, as officers made contact with Ivory and
Gibson at their residence in Tuscaloosa and recovered the stolen items and
weapons allegedly used in the burglary. Yet his agent, Jeff Guerriero, claims
that his client is innocent and will be cleared of all charges. Look for a, “This
person they ‘burglarized’ had items that belonged to them and they were merely
recovering their own property,’ defense from this crew some time soon………
- Sh*t just got real in Guatemala. The Latin American nation’s
constitutional court has
revived a process that could strip President Otto Perez Molina of immunity from
prosecution amid growing corruption scandals and that’s as real as it gets. Court
President Gloria Porras announced that an injunction suspending the process
last month was lifted after the court considered Perez Molina's petition,
re-starting a process that could lead to impeachment. Vice President Roxana
Baldetti already resigned in a customs scandal involving kickbacks for lower
import duties allegedly headed by her private secretary, but that was merely
the first juicy chapter in a story that gets better by the day. A second
scandal saw officials allegedly award a $15 million contract for kidney
treatments to a company lacking a license to perform the services. That seems
suspicious and the very definition of government corruption, but let’s not jump
on the graft bandwagon so hastily. Perez Molina has not been implicated and
says he did nothing wrong and we all know that politicians are always
forthright and candid when they’re accused of wrongdoing and are guilty of the
offense. Instead, Molina has remained defiant and entrenched despite the fact
that protesters regularly fill streets in the capital calling for his
resignation. Here’s hoping that attitude continues for a while because the
refusal of leaders to accept accountability for their misdeeds even though
their citizens are revolting and pounding on the door demanding their exit is
how effigies end up getting burned and how leaders’ heads end up on pikes being
paraded through the center of the city as the bloodthirsty and enraged masses
cheer, chant and celebrate the demise of someone who failed to run their
country the right way. There’s still hope for that outcome here and the world
is counting on you, Guatemala……….
- There seemingly is no end to the thread of string that
is the Confederate flag controversy in these here United States. Now, Bo and Luke Duke are caught in
the crossfire and these two good ol’ boys who just like driving around in their
souped-up muscle car and trying to keep the local bumpkins from hitting on
their smokin’ hot sister in her super-short jean shorts are losing air time because
of the presence of the flag on their car. Yes, TV Land has pulled episodes of
"The Dukes of Hazzard" from its schedule, a spokesperson confirmed following
rumors that the show was taken off the air due to its inclusion of a 1969 Dodge Charger
known as the "General Lee" which has the Confederate battle flag
painted on its roof. When the murders occurred last month at the Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, no one really
forecast a TV show that ran during the early 1980s and has maintained a
bizarrely loyal cult fan base since then being pulled into the national debate
in the aftermath. The General Lee is one of the most famous cars in TV history and
its departure from syndicated daytime TV follows an announcement by Warner
Bros. that its consumer products division would stop licensing General Lee toy
cars and models. Ben Jones, a former U.S. congressman and actor who played the character
Cooter on the series, isn't ready to give up his syndication money, er, the
fight. "I think all of Hazzard Nation understands that the Confederate
Battle flag is the symbol that represents the indomitable spirit of
independence which keeps us 'makin' our way the only way we know how,'"
Jones wrote on his Facebook page. "I will fight these people until hell
freezes over. And then I will fight them on the ice." Make that ice thin
and your chances of rescue once it breaks negligible and you’ve got a deal,
Cooter……..
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