Migrant teens stabbed in NYC, 1 fatally, after being asked if they spoke English: Police
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(NEW YORK) — Officials say two migrant teens were victims in a New York City stabbing, one fatally, after the teens were asked if they spoke English and they responded that they didn’t.
Officials say a trio of men approached the teens around 7:40 p.m. Thursday night, when one of the men asked if the teens spoke English. When the teens said they did not, they were attacked, according to police.
Police say they responded to a 911 call for an assault in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival, officers found a 17-year-old male with a stab wound to the chest and an 18-year-old male with a stab wound to the left arm.
Emergency medical services responded and transported both teens to the NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue location, according to officials.
The 17-year-old male, now identified by officials as Yeremi Colino, succumbed to his injuries and the 18-year-old male is in stable condition, the NYPD reports.
The surviving victim believed he was stabbed with a screwdriver, police said. A knife was recovered at the scene, according to police, who say they will test it for forensics.
The three suspects fled the stabbing on foot. They are described as being in their 20s with dark complexions.
One was wearing a green jacket, white pants and white sneakers. Second was wearing red pants and a red hooded sweatshirt with a black jacket, also had a black backpack. Third was wearing red sweatpants, red hooded sweatshirt, black jacket and blue and white sneakers.
There are no arrests at this time, and the investigation remains ongoing, according to police.
(NEW YORK) — A massive black market scheme that diverted and resold critical prescription drugs potentially put unsuspecting patients in the path of harm and bilked the U.S. government out of millions of dollars, according to federal charging documents unsealed Wednesday.
The illicit operation was allegedly led, aided and abetted by multiple pharmacy owners and employees in Puerto Rico, as well as a medical facility procurement worker who “used his position” to steal legitimate medications from the warehouse before they hit the market and then resold them at a “steep discount” to individual pharmacy owners, according to an indictment.
The 27 people indicted in the scheme include a onetime Olympic basketball player, officials at the U.S. Department of Health’s Office of Inspector General told ABC News. Of those indicted, one has already pleaded guilty, officials said.
Eddin Orlando Santiago-Cordero, aka “Guayacan,” allegedly served as one of many unlicensed wholesale distributors, according to an indictment. Decades before facing charges in the scheme, he was on Puerto Rico’s Olympic roster, a spokesperson for the HHS-OIG told ABC News.
Early Wednesday, federal authorities arrested some of the individuals allegedly involved in the operation across Puerto Rico and in Florida, the HHS-OIG spokesperson said.
More than 100 different drugs — many of grave necessity to the people who take them — were part of the drug diversion scheme, the charging documents said. These drugs include multiple HIV+ medications, insulin, thyroid medication, antipsychotic / schizophrenia medication, alcohol and opioid addiction medication, blood thinners, asthma and COPD medications, IV antibiotics to treat serious infections like meningitis or sepsis, hormone replacement therapy estrogen, malaria medication, popular obesity and diabetes drugs including Ozempic and Mounjaro, as well as medication used for erectile dysfunction and enlarged prostate.
Those drugs were snatched before reaching retail, often stored in resealable plastic baggies without markings — and importantly, without the conditions needed to maintain some of the meds’ safety and effectiveness, the charging documents say. One example cited in the court documents is insulin, which must be refrigerated.
“It becomes difficult, if not impossible, for regulators such as the FDA, law enforcement, or end-users to know whether the prescription drug package actually contains the correct drug or the correct dose” once the meds are diverted, court documents said. “Law enforcement officers, regulators, and end users would not know whether the prescription drug was altered, stored in improper conditions, or had its potency adversely affected.”
Nearly $21 million in fraudulent funds — just shy of $14 million of that from ill-gotten gains selling misbranded and diverted prescriptions and more than $7.6 million of that from false Medicare and Medicaid claims — were netted in the alleged scheme, court documents allege.
The alleged operation is part of an “alarming” and a “growing” trend, HHS-OIG’s special agent in charge of the New York Regional Office Naomi Gruchacz told ABC News in an exclusive interview ahead of the takedown she helped lead.
“The motivation oftentimes to conduct this type of scheme is for greed,” Gruchacz said. “They’re making a financial profit. The greed takes over and even though the community is put at risk, that’s overlooked — even though oftentimes it’s happening in the same community that these healthcare providers should be servicing.”
Since syndicates like these operate outside official channels’ guardrails it’s not only near-impossible to track if the drugs are downgraded or even what they purport to be — it’s also hard to track where exactly the diverted prescriptions go, and into whose hands, an HHS-OIG spokesperson said.
Co-conspirators of the operation “sold prescription drugs in resealable clear plastic bags without any labels and adequate directions,” paid each other in cash, and sent shipments of diverted drugs via the United States Postal Service “as well as private and commercial carriers using fictitious names and addresses,” the charging documents said.
“We have seen in other investigations that sometimes the medication is sold on legitimate, wholesale distribution websites,” Gruchacz said.
Syndicates like this one have at times collected drugs from patients who ration and sell their own prescriptions for a kickback, she said.
“It is patient harm that we’re talking about, both on the front end – the patient that should be taking the medication, and on the back end if a patient is unknowingly receiving a diverted medication,” Gruchacz said. “We don’t know how it’s being stored. We don’t know if it’s expired.”
Attorney information for Santiago-Cordero and other defendants was not immediately available.
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted Thursday to approve new rules requiring all wireless carriers to implement georouting for calls to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in a move it says will help “save more lives.”
“Time and again, across many different communities, I have heard stories of how important the 988 Lifeline is for individuals in need of support,” Commissioner Anna Gomez said during the FCC’s Thursday meeting. “Today we affirm the experiences of these individuals and take steps to enhance the lifesaving capability of this service.”
“Doing everything we can to ensure that individuals in a crisis can receive the support they need saves lives and is simply good policy,” she added.
When a person calls 988, that call is routed to one of the Lifeline’s 200-plus crisis centers around the United States. The new rules will require carriers to route calls based on where the call was placed, allowing for a more localized response. Since the three-digit number launched in July 2022, it has been using area code-based call routing.
“This is a mismatch I have long believed we should fix — and I believe we can save more lives if we do so,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the Thursday meeting. “Because if we get more people connected to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, to resources that are local, we can help more people with more meaningful assistance in more places.”
Rosenworcel explained that when the original 10-digit Lifeline number was created in 2005, most calls came in on landlines, so area code routing made sense. Now, she said, almost 80% of calls come from cellphones, creating the need for georouting to provide localized care.
Advocates have called for georouting to be implemented for years, saying callers would benefit from localized follow-up care, though there have been some concerns about caller privacy. Under the new georouting system, calls will be routed based on the location of the cell tower that originates the call, as opposed to the precise location of the caller — a move meant to protect privacy, according to the FCC.
The order passed Thursday only requires georouting for phone calls to the Lifeline. There is currently no requirement for text contacts to the Lifeline to be georouted. However, the FCC also voted to propose and begin seeking comments on a rule that would require georouting for texts.
Phone calls accounted for about 72% of contacts to the Lifeline for the month of August, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data. Texts accounted for about 19% of August contacts. The remaining contacts come from web-based chat services, the data showed.
“We’re not going to stop working to improve the Lifeline until everyone gets access to the local help and resources that they need,” Rosenworcel said.
Last month, wireless carriers Verizon and T-Mobile implemented voluntary georouting for 988 calls placed on their networks — a move that accounted for about half of all calls to the Lifeline, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Around 80% of calls to the 988 Lifeline are done through wireless phones, and many people have phone numbers with different area codes from where they live, work or visit,” T-Mobile President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson said at the time. “Georouting ensures that those seeking help will reach the available crisis center nearest their location for support. It’s about making sure help is there when and where it’s needed most.”
All national carriers will have 30 days to implement georouting for their 988 calls. Smaller providers will have 24 months.
Since the 988 launch, the Lifeline has fielded more than 10 million contacts.
If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises, or are worried about a friend or loved one, please call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.
(GREEN LAKE, Wis.) — A husband and father of three who vanished at a Wisconsin lake this summer may have faked his own death and fled to Eastern Europe, authorities said, and the sheriff is now urging the missing man to come forward.
“Our most important thing, for us, is to know that you’re safe,” Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said in his message to Ryan Borgwardt. “We can talk through all this and we can work things out.”
The case began on the morning of Aug. 12, when authorities learned Borgwardt, 45, hadn’t returned home and was last known to be on Green Lake, according to the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Borgwardt last texted his wife on the night of Aug. 11, saying he was turning his kayak around and heading to shore soon, Podoll said.
Officials discovered Borgwardt’s overturned kayak and life jacket in the lake, authorities said, and they later found his fishing rod and tackle box.
Responders believed the missing dad drowned and they scoured the lake using divers, drones, sonar and cadaver K-9s, officials said.
“The search continued for about 54 days, with no sign of Ryan,” the sheriff said during a news conference on Friday. “Near daily drone searches were completed. And Bruce’s Legacy [a volunteer search organization] methodically searched approximately 1,500 acres. … Keith Cormican, [who leads] Bruce’s Legacy, sifted through hours and hours of sonar data and images.”
“Keith’s expertise and equipment led us to believe either something very odd occurred and Ryan was outside the area that had been searched, or something else had occurred,” the sheriff said.
The case took a turn in October when investigators discovered Borgwardt’s name had been checked by law enforcement in Canada on Aug. 13, the sheriff said.
Authorities also learned Borgwardt had been communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan, the sheriff said.
Other behavior included clearing his browsers the day he disappeared, inquiries about moving funds to foreign banks, getting a new life insurance policy, obtaining a new passport and replacing his laptop hard drive, the sheriff said.
“I was totally shocked,” Podoll told ABC News on Monday. “It was just unbelievable that we would have a case like this where some party actually staged his death.”
Authorities have stopped searching the lake.
“As far as we know, he’s someplace in Eastern Europe,” the sheriff told ABC News.
Investigators are “looking into what charges could be filed,” Podoll said, adding, “that’s a work in progress.”
Authorities hope to pursue restitution for the expenses of the search, the sheriff’s office said.
“He wasted a lot of my time and it cost me a lot of money,” Cormican of Bruce’s Legacy said.
Podoll said it’s not clear if Borgwardt was given help, and he urged anyone with information to come forward.
Podoll praised Borgwardt’s wife, whom he said was not involved, calling her “a very, very strong lady.”
“I was there when the sheriff broke the news to the whole family. And it was pretty, pretty heart-wrenching to see,” Cormican told ABC News. “I feel horrible for the family. They’re the ones that are going to really struggle.”
ABC News’ Karolina Rivas contributed to this report.
