All Blog Posts from Crimesider

PITTSBURGH - Getting a $50,000 payoff after flipping the bird at a police officer?

That may sound out hand, but if a tentative settlement approved by the Pittsburgh City Council stands, that is how much David Hackbart stands to gain after filing a free speech lawsuit against the city.

Hackbart says that he was attempting to parallel park in April 2006 when he used his middle finger "to express his frustration" at a driver who pulled behind him and blocked his entry into the space.

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FRANKFORT, Kentucky - It looked like a viscious anti-government murder. U.S. census worker Bill Sparkman was found naked, bound with duct tape, hanging from a tree with "fed" scrawled on his chest in rural Kentucky.

But authorities said Tuesday that Sparkman's death was not the work of an anti-government anarchist, it was his own. He staged his death to make it look like a homicide, they say.

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MADISON, Wis. - Kevin Derks turned his Wisconsin apartment into a pornographic shrine to young girls, police say, where every surface of the residence, including cupboard doors and shelves, was covered with posters, photos and computer printouts of girls in various poses, states of undress or engaged in sex acts.

No expense was spared.

His pin-up interests included the Olsen twins, Miley Cyrus, Dakota Fanning, and even kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart, investigators said Monday.

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NEW YORK - Nude, yes. Lewd, no.

A New York judge dismissed public lewdness and other charges Monday against 26-year-old model Kathleen Neill who posed for a nude photo shoot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while visitors looked on.

Neill, also known as "K.C.," was arrested in August during photographer Zach Hyman's shoot in the arms and armor department in the Met.

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WASHINGTON - They are unusual bedfellows.

Homosexuals and religious groups, who are often at loggerheads over gay marriage, seem to have at least one thing in common. Reports of hate crimes against both groups were up sharply in 2008, according to an annual FBI statistics report released on Monday.

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SAN FERNANDO, Calif. - Authorities are searching for a man suspected of robbing a nun in the parking lot of a grocery store in San Fernando, Calif., and the heist was caught on surveillance tape.

A pair of nuns in full religious dress were putting their groceries into their vehicle in the parking lot of a Food 4 Less store on Glen Oaks Boulevard, when police say a man in a white t-shirt approached them and asked a question.

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OKLAHOMA CITY - Former Marine David Allen Tyner has been arraigned on six counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of four people whose bodies were found in a burning home, including prostitute Brooke Phillips featured on the HBO reality series "Cathouse."

According to the Oklahoman, prosecutors believe that Tyner, a member of a Native American gang called the Native Brotherhood, was gunning for his old boss, Casey Mark Barrientos, 32, a Hispanic man with a history of drug offenses. Tyner once worked for Barrientos as a body guard, the paper said.

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LOS ANGELES - Erin Andrews' alleged peephole stalker is definitely sorry he got charged with a crime. But Michael David Barrett also says he's not guilty.

Barrett entered that plea Monday in Los Angeles, on one count of interstate stalking, for allegedly shooting secret nude videos of ESPN reporter Andrews.

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PERUGIA, Italy - The murder charges against Amanda Knox are "pure fantasy" according to the American student, who addressed an Italian court over the weekend.

Knox, along with two others, is accused in the fatal stabbing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Italian prosecutors, in their closing arguments, said Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, should be convicted on charges of murder and sexual violence for the 2007 slaying.

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ATLANTA - Was it murder, or sickle-cell anemia that caused the death of "A.J." Jewel, the on-again-off-again fiancé of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" cast member Kandi Burruss?

A preliminary report on Jewell's autopsy is labeling the death a "homicide," saying it was the fight Ashley "A.J." Jewel had in the parking lot of a strip club that caused his rare sickle-cell anemia condition to be fatal.

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