Man arrested for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at Queens houses of worship
Stock image of Molotov cocktail. (Sinenkiy/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A man was arrested after he allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at two different houses of worship and another building in Queens Wednesday night, the New York City Police Department said.
Officers responded to a 911 call at Iglesia Bautista El Mesias Church in Ozone Park around 11:35 p.m. about a man allegedly throwing the incendiary device, according to the NYPD.
Surveillance footage showed the suspect lighting the Molotov cocktail and then throwing it at the church before walking away after it exploded on the ground, police said.
The New York City Fire Department put out the fire. No one was hurt and there was no significant damage to the building, according to the police.
Alex Garcia, the pastor of the church, told ABC News’ New York City affiliate WABC that the house of worship has been around for 20 years.
“We have no enemies, so I don’t know where this is coming from,” he told the station.
The suspect, who police only identified as a 36-year-old man, then allegedly traveled a mile north to Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses and allegedly lit and threw another Molotov cocktail at the house of worship, according to investigators.
There were no reported damage or injuries at that location, police said.
The suspect was arrested by police later in the night, according to the NYPD.
Investigators discovered that he allegedly threw another Molotov cocktail at a third location in the area, according to the NYPD. That building also sustained no damage, and there were no injuries, investigators said.
Police alleged that the suspect had a bag with two other Molotov cocktails inside at the time of his arrest.
The suspect’s charges and arraignment were pending as of Thursday morning, police said. The investigation is ongoing.
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA on 9/8/04. (Photo by Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The House Oversight Committee on Thursday is scheduled to conduct a closed-door interview with Sarah Kellen, a former personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, as part of the panel’s ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of investigations into the late sex offender.
Kellen, 46, was previously a subject of criminal investigations but has never been charged — due, in part, to her own allegations of persistent sexual abuse at the hands of the disgraced financier, according to court documents and records released earlier this year by the Justice Department.
“Every aspect of her life was controlled by Epstein. He dominated her psychologically. [Kellen] was constantly emotionally bullied and coerced by Epstein, including being required to submit to his constant sexual abuse,” her attorneys wrote in a civil complaint against Epstein’s estate in 2020.
Kellen’s appearance at the Capitol comes as the committee ramps up for a busy stretch of its investigation, which was officially launched in February of last year. Other notable witnesses scheduled in the coming months include Epstein’s longtime executive assistant Leslie Groff, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, former Goldman Sachs chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, and billionaires Bill Gates and Leon Black.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), has indicated that a report on its findings will be produced before the end of the year.
Following Epstein’s death in custody in July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York investigating possible collaborators engaged in discussions with Kellen and her attorneys that spanned more than a year. Documents released by the DOJ earlier this year included prosecutors’ internal assessments of a potential case against Kellen and emails from her attorneys trying to dissuade the government from filing charges.
“We feel that given [Kellen’s] abuse, and given the fact that we see her basically as a cog in Epstein’s wheel, acting entirely at his direction and doing what she did at a time that she herself was a very vulnerable victim, a [non-prosecution] would be the appropriate disposition,” an attorney for Kellen wrote in the spring of 2020.
According to DOJ records, the government did not dispute that Kellen “was herself a victim of abuse by Epstein,” noting that her account was consistent with others who worked for Epstein and allegedly experienced sexual exploitation.
Prosecutors detailed in a proposed “statement of facts” sent to Kellen’s attorneys in late 2020 that several “minor victims reported to federal agents that Epstein paid them for sexualized massages while they were underage girls, including during massages that [Kellen] scheduled.”
Kellen conceded that Epstein directed her to schedule his daily massages in the early 2000s when he was staying in his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, according to the DOJ records. She claimed she was provided a directory of names and instructed on who to call, and denied having knowledge that some who came to the house were underage.
She told prosecutors she viewed the “masseuses as her peers — i.e. young adults in their early 20s — and it never [crossed] her mind that any of them were minors,” government lawyers wrote in a December 2019 memo summarizing their investigation for Geoffrey Berman, then the top federal prosecutor in New York.
Kellen said she “only learned that Epstein was sexually abusing minors when news articles started coming out about it” in the mid-2000s, according to the records. “She recalled being shocked, angry, and disappointed. She was particularly angry with Epstein for manipulating her to help orchestrate the abuse of other women,” the records said.
Federal prosecutors ultimately decided against charging Kellen, though the internal deliberations that led to that outcome are unclear. Much of the legal analysis in the prosecution memos remains redacted in the publicly available versions of the DOJ records.
Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell remains the only other person charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes. She is serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison camp in Texas. Maxwell is presently seeking to have her conviction vacated or her sentence reduced.
Kellen — who has largely avoided public comment surrounding the Epstein investigation — told a reporter from a British paper who approached her on the street in New York in 2020 that she was “raped and abused weekly.”
“I have been made out to be such a monster — but it’s not true. I’m a victim of Jeffrey Epstein,” Kellen said, according to the U.K. Sun report.
An attorney who represented Kellen during discussions with federal prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of Kellen’s appearance in Washington, D.C.
Earthquake richter scale (Gary S Chapman/Getty Images)
(BOULDER CREEK, Calif) — A 4.9 magnitude earthquake shook Northern California early Thursday morning, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The epicenter struck at a depth of 10.9 km (6.77 miles) near Boulder Creek, California, approximately 65 miles southeast of San Francisco.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
In this photo illustration, a PolyMarket logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with stock market percentages on the background. (Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One week after a special forces soldier was indicted on charges of using classified information to wager on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the prediction market Polymarket announced it is increasing its internal monitoring of trades.
Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who prosecutors say helped plan and execute the raid on Maduro’s Caracas compound, allegedly made more than $400,000 on Polymarket by using insider knowledge to place 13 bets on the outcome of the operation.
On Thursday, Polymarket announced that it had tapped a blockchain data company to continually monitor the platform for suspicious trades.
Polymarket and analytics firm Chainalysis said they are working together on a “first-of-its-kind” system to enforce the Polymarket’s market integrity rules by monitoring transactions on-chain — referring to the platform’s public disclosure of transaction data.
“Polymarket was built on-chain because transparency matters, and our platform shows what markets can look like when trades are open, traceable, and accountable by design,” Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in a statement.
Through the partnership, the company is looking to confront the longstanding challenge of insider trading by leaning into a decentralized solution based on the public blockchain — essentially a distributed database — on which it can follow the tracks of every trade based on data that’s permanently stored and sealed with unique identifier.
Chainalysis says they will use their technology to quickly provide law enforcement with “blockchain-verified evidence” to proactively identify threats.
While Polymarket already had a monitoring system for insider trading, both companies say the new partnership will help them quickly identify patterns that suggest an trader with insider knowledge is placing bets.
“With this collaboration, on-chain markets have the potential to be the most trustworthy markets for understanding world events,” Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin.
Online sleuths have been successful in flagging suspicious trades such as the bet that prosecutors say Van Dyke placed on Maduro’s capture. Posts about the suspicious wager began appearing online within hours of the trade, and prosecutors then took about four months to build their case.
Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday in Manhattan federal court and was released on bond.
