Fashion tech executive arrested for alleged $300 million fraud
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(NEW YORK) — Christine Hunsicker, the founder of clothing-rental company CaaStle, was arrested Friday on federal fraud charges accusing her of cheating investors out of $300 million.
Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York said that Hunsicker misrepresented CaaStle’s financial performance to investors, allegedly making false revenue projections of hundreds of millions of dollars and falsely claiming to have hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on hand when in truth, according to prosecutors, the company was nearing collapse.
“Christine Hunsicker defrauded investors of hundreds of millions of dollars through document forgery, fabricated audits and material misrepresentations about her company’s financial health,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in Friday’s announcement, in part.
The indictment also alleges that Hunsicker “continued her fraudulent activities and attempted to raise new capital” even after CaaStle’s board removed her as chair “and prohibited her from soliciting investments.”
Hunsicker, 48, resigned in April after CaaStle’s board accused her of impropriety, and civil lawsuits accused her and the company of elaborate fraud. The company, formerly known as Gwinnie Bee, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in June.
Hunsicker surrendered to authorities Friday morning and was expected to appear in federal court Friday afternoon, according to the announcement.
The indictment is a startling development for a once-celebrated executive who previously boasted of partnering with Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic and other major brands to offer consumers rental services.
The indictment charges Hunsicker with one count of wire fraud, two counts of securities fraud, and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. She’s also charged with one count of making false statements to a financial institution, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, and aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory sentence of two years in prison.
(MINNESOTA) — Minnesotans are lining up at the state capitol on Friday to honor a slain lawmaker and her husband as their accused killer made a brief appearance in court.
Melissa Hortman is the first woman to lie in state, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Next to the Hortmans was their golden retriever, Gilbert, who was wounded in the attack and later had to be euthanized, officials said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and first lady Gwen Walz are among those paying their respects.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the couple’s private funeral on Saturday, according to a source familiar with Harris’ plans.
Harris spoke to the Hortmans’ two children, Sophie and Colin, in the last week “to express her deep condolences and offer her support,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the Hortmans’ alleged killer, Vance Boelter, who faces federal charges including stalking and state charges including first-degree murder, briefly appeared in federal court on Friday.
Boelter alleged the conditions in jail have kept him from sleeping for 12 to 14 days, according to Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP. Boelter claimed the doors are slammed incessantly, the lights are always and that he sleeps on a mat without a pillow, KSTP reported. He also allegedly said an inmate next to him spreads feces, KSTP reported.
The judge agreed to push back Boelter’s hearing to July 3, according to KSTP. Boelter has not entered a plea.
Boelter is accused of shooting and killing the Hortmans at their home in Brooklyn Park and shooting and wounding Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their house in nearby Champlin in the early hours of June 14, authorities said.
Boelter, 57, allegedly showed up to their doors, impersonating a police officer and wearing a realistic-looking latex mask to carry out his “political assassinations,” prosecutors said.
Investigators recovered a list of about 45 elected officials in notebooks in his car, according to prosecutors. Two other lawmakers were spared the night of the shootings, officials said.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia said in a court filing Thursday that after conducting three depositions, they are “still in the dark about the Government’s efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody and return to the United States.”
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, seeking to determine how the government has failed to return Abrego Garcia after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, last month ordered expedited discovery in the case which included the depositions of the four government officials who submitted status updates on Abrego Garcia to the court.
In their filing on Thursday, attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked Judge Xinis to authorize three additional depositions of officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of State, and the Department of Justice.
“As the Court stated in that Order, “discovery is necessary in light of Defendants’ uniform refusal to disclose ‘what it can’ regarding their facilitation of Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the status quo ante,” the lawyers wrote.
The motion comes a day after Judge Xinis, in a court order, said that the Trump administration had invoked the rarely used state secrets privilege to shield information about the case, and scheduled a May 16 hearing on the matter.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13. His wife and attorneys deny that he is an MS-13 member.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States.
“Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador and should never have been in this country and will not be coming back to this country,” Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Thursday in an appearance at a budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“There is no scenario where Garcia will be in the United States again. If he were to come back, we would immediately deport him again,” Noem said.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Army met its annual recruiting target of 61,000 in the first week of June, four months ahead of the scheduled Sept. 30 deadline, after putting in place new initiatives to boost recruitment.
It marks a stunning turnaround for a service that failed to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 and struggled in the years since to meet its annual targets.
“The U.S. Army has successfully met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals for active duty, signing contracts with more than 61,000 future Soldiers — a full four months before the end of the fiscal year,” the U.S. Army said in a statement. “This achievement represents a significant turning point for the Army and indicates a renewed sense of patriotism and purpose among America’s youth.”
Dan Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, said in a statement that he is “incredibly proud” of the service’s recruiters and drill sergeants.
“Their colossal efforts and dedication to duty helped the U.S. Army accomplish our FY25 annual recruiting goal a full four months ahead of schedule,” Driscoll added. “The U.S. Army is focused on lethality, taking care of our Soldiers, and transforming for a dangerous future — young people across the country want to be part of the U.S. Army, and these results clearly demonstrate that.”
The fiscal 2025 recruiting target was 10% higher than the 55,000 recruits targeted in fiscal 2024, and the Army statement added that “recent recruiting momentum has seen average contracts per day exceeding last year’s levels by as much as 56% during the same period.”
This is the first time since June 2014 that the Army has met its annual recruiting goal so early. The Army said recruiting efforts will continue and that additional recruits will be placed in the Delayed Entry Program in which recruits delay their start dates so the Army can begin the following recruiting year with recruits in hand.
The Army’s surge in recruitment numbers parallels the recruiting surge the other military services are experiencing, something that both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have attributed to a change in attitude brought about by the Trump administration’s end of policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
However, the services’ recruiting turnarounds began last year before the November election following the implementation of new initiatives to help boost recruiting. The Army’s recruiting turnaround is being attributed to the establishment of an academic and physical fitness preparatory course for potential recruits, the professionalization of the recruiting force and an increase in recruiting bonuses.
In an interview with the Associated Press in January, then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the Army was on pace to meet its target of 61,000 for the year as well as have more than 20,000 additional young people signed up for the DEP.
“Concerns about the Army being, quote, woke, have not been a significant issue in our recruiting crisis,” she said. “They weren’t at the beginning of the crisis. They weren’t in the middle of the crisis. They aren’t now. The data does not show that young Americans don’t want to join the Army because they think the army is woke — however they define that.”
Instead, Instead the Army’s recruiting success was a result of new initiatives, such as the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course established in August 2022 that provided 1 in every 4 of Army recruits among the 55,000 who signed up for Army service in 2024. In the interview with the Associated Press, Wormuth said data showed the course might account for as much as a third of this year’s recruiting totals.
The program was established following the Army’s failure to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 as a recognition that the Army was turning away potential recruits who had a strong desire to serve in the U.S. military but fell just short of meeting their academic and physical fitness requirements.
Potential recruits who did not meet those requirements were sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for up to 90 days for academic and physical fitness training to help them get ready for a new round of testing so they could become recruits.
The Army’s success with the program in 2024 was reflected not only in successfully meeting that year’s goal but also in placing 14,000 recruits in the DEP. The Navy has replicated the Army’s preparatory course and implemented its own training system for potential recruits who initially fall short.
The Army is also moving away from rotating soldiers into assignments as recruiters and professionalizing the career field so it includes those who are motivated to stay in the field.
Recruiting bonuses have been a key way of incentivizing service members to join the military for the last two decades, and those numbers rose significantly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan particularly to meet in-demand work specialties.
The Army lists recruiting bonuses that could total as much as $50,000 for eligible recruits who would enlist for hard-to-fill jobs and for meeting certain criteria, according to the Army’s recruiting site.
Statistics for this recruiting year are not yet available, but Army statistics from 2024 show that “ 24,185 recruits received an average bonus of $16.9K.”
Those same statistics show that since 2020, the Army’s annual recruiting class has become increasingly diverse, with more minorities joining the active duty service since then and the number of women rising to pre-2020 levels.
For example, the number of white recruits in fiscal 2024 decreased to 40.5% from the 52.7% who joined in 2020 while the number of Black and Hispanic recruits increased.
That trend was reflected in 2024’s total recruiting effort, where 26.1% of recruits were Hispanic, the highest number ever, and the number of Black recruits increased by 6% over the previous year to 25.8% of the total.
