New Orleans Saints, NFL announce $1M donation to Bourbon Street victims
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(NEW ORLEANS) — The New Orleans Saints and the NFL announced Saturday that they will donate $1 million to the victims of the New Year’s Day truck ramming attack on Bourbon Street that killed 14 people and injured dozens of others.
“Our community has experienced an unimaginable tragedy and our collective hearts are broken as we mourn for the victims and survivors on the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans,” Saints owner Gayle Benson said in a statement.
The team will be working with the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) and United Way to help distribute $500,000 to organizations that are providing support to the victims and their families.
The NFL Foundation, the league’s philanthropic arm, said it would match the team’s donation.
“The NFL is committed to standing with the resilient community of New Orleans during this difficult time,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.
As of Saturday, 13 of the 14 victims have been publicly identified. Their ages range from 18 to 63, according to officials.
Shenghua Wen was allegedly moving items to North Korea by concealing them in shipping containers; FBI
(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — An undocumented Chinese national living in the U.S. has been charged with procuring and shipping guns, ammunition and electronics to North Korea, according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Shenghua Wen was allegedly moving items to North Korea by concealing them in shipping containers from Long Beach, California, through Hong Kong and then to North Korea.
Federal agents in August seized two devices from Wen’s home that he had allegedly planned to send to North Korea for its military use — a chemical threat identification device and a handheld broadband receiver, according to a criminal complaint.
In September, over 50,000 rounds of ammo were found in Wen’s vehicle that he allegedly admitted were heading to North Korea, the complaint says.
Wen entered the United States on a student visa in 2012 and never left, according to the complaint.
He allegedly met North Korean officials in China before he came to the U.S., the complaint alleges. He was then directed to procure goods on behalf of North Korea.
Being in the U.S. illegally, Wen knew he could not buy the goods so he allegedly used other people to purchase the guns through straw purchases, prosecutors say.
(ASHEVILLE, N.C.) — Twenty-six people remain unaccounted for in hard-hit North Carolina, weeks after the devastation unleashed by Hurricane Helene, officials said Monday.
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, wreaking havoc across the Southeast from Florida to Virginia. Helene destroyed homes and roads, stranded residents without cellphone service and water, and claimed the lives of nearly 250 people throughout the Southeast.
At least 95 of Helene’s fatalities were in North Carolina, officials said. Gov. Roy Cooper called Helene “the deadliest and most devastating storm” in the state’s history.
“It hurts the very people we are all trying to help,” he said. “It discourages and makes people fearful of signing up for help. It enables scam artists and it hurts the morale of government officials, first responders and soldiers who are on the ground trying to help.”
Former President Donald Trump is set to visit to the hard-hit city of Asheville on Monday to survey damage from the storm.
Cooper said he’s asking the former president to “not share lies or misinformation while he is here.”
Cooper said the White House “responded quickly and positively to our request from FEMA, which has had 1,400 staff on the ground and has registered 206,000 people for individual assistance, and distributed $124 million directly to people who need it.”
“As for long-term recovery, state and local government will be all in, along with the federal government,” Cooper said. “This will take billions of dollars and years of bipartisan focus from everyone working together to make it happen — from new roads and bridges to public building to water supplies to people’s homes.”
FEMA is now launching a “new initiative” to hire community liaisons in North Carolina’s impacted counties, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell announced Monday.
“We know that so many people have temporarily lost their jobs. We know that others just want to be able to give back, and we want to help keep people in these communities while they recover,” she said. “So these new community liaisons are going to work alongside us at FEMA to make sure that they are the local voice, the trusted voice in their community, and that they can share with us the local considerations and the concerns, so we can include them as part of this recovery. They’re going to be embedded in every county, working directly with county administrators, mayors and community leaders, bridging their concerns with our FEMA staff. And these jobs are available for people to apply right now.”
(NEW YORK) — When Cory Martin wanted to know how to cover up a grisly crime and dispose of a murder victim’s dismembered body, he turned to television, watching “The First 48” and “Dexter” for tips, according to federal prosecutors.
“The defendant directed Witness-1 to watch the television show Dexter with him in preparation for the murder. In Dexter, a serial killer murders and dismembers his victims, concealing forensic evidence by covering his ‘kill room’ from floor to ceiling with plastic,” prosecutors said.
Martin is set to be sentenced in Brooklyn federal court for murdering a sex worker, Brandy Odom, as part of a life insurance scam and then cutting up her body for disposal.
His sentencing, which was originally scheduled for Thursday, has since been rescheduled for Nov. 6.
He faces a mandatory life sentence.
“It is fitting that that Martin faces a mandatory sentence to spend the rest of his life in prison for this ghastly, cold-blooded crime that was motivated by greed and executed after extensive planning,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said after Martin’s conviction. “Martin saw the victim as a moneymaker, trafficking her for commercial sex, then after killing her with his bare hands, tossing out her slaughtered body parts like trash so he could profit from her death.”
Odom’s mother is expected to address the court prior to sentencing.
Odom’s dismembered body was found in a Canarsie park in 2018, according to authorities. The 26-year-old’s head and naked torso were found among leaves and twigs. Her arms and legs were discovered nearby, officials said.
He was not arrested until November 2020.
Martin, 36, was convicted in March of murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire resulting in the death of Odom, as well as wire fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of identification.
“During the time Odom lived with the defendant, he acted as her pimp and controlled every aspect of her life, using the income from her commercial sex work to pay his bills and finance his lifestyle. The defendant then plotted to profit further off Odom by taking out life insurance policies in her name and murdering her to collect the proceeds,” prosecutors said.
Police said Anderson read several articles about the murder in the months after the killing, including one titled “Search area expands after dismembered body found in Canarsie Park in Brooklyn.”
Adelle Anderson, 32, who was also arrested as part of the crime, already pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, identity theft and wire fraud. She has yet to be sentenced, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
