Abigail Goldman

Reporter/ General Assignment

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Story Archive

Toast this recession loser: Ponzi schemes: FBI investigators swamped as investor fears hasten scams’ inevitable discovery; Tuesday, June 16, 2009; The FBI has opened a new Ponzi scheme investigation nearly every day for the past eight months, according to Las Vegas special agent Joseph Dickey. This is a considerable jump, one Dickey and fellow agents attribute to the economy and the nature of the crime.
Complications abound when identity stolen is a patient’s: Sunday, June 14, 2009; Scott Bennett has gone to Las Vegas Valley hospitals for medical care dozens of times in the past five years — impressive for a Texan who hasn’t set foot in Nevada since 1998.
‘Identity theft buffet’ lands ex-broker in court: Feds blaming trash bin full of financial records on local no longer licensed; Friday, June 12, 2009; Forty boxes of paperwork were found in a trash bin on Decatur Boulevard in December 2006 — boxes that Metro Police seized for safekeeping because they appeared to contain sensitive financial information.
Web chatter ahead of police in revealing details of crime: Sunday, June 7, 2009; Metro Police announced very little about the arrest of Tanner Rousseau, except that he was 18 and booked on murder charges in connection with a fatal stabbing in the Tropicana parking lot. But almost immediately, his friends told the world a lot more — online.
A new way to pay for breast implants: Idea born in Vegas: Web site links donors, women wanting implants; Monday, June 1, 2009; What Susan wanted was simple: She wanted her husband to come home from Iraq and she wanted breast implants. She couldn’t do much about the war — but the bigger breasts she couldn’t afford? She got them for free.
Police evidence for sale: Big, odd or out of date, items from Metro’s vault have hit the market; Thursday, May 28, 2009; Most of the items in Metro’s evidence vault are what you’d expect: stolen car stereos, bloody clothing from crime scenes, weapons seized during investigations. But you wouldn’t have counted on the hot air balloon or the box of cremated remains sitting on evidence vault director Sheri Bingham’s desk last week.
Six questions for Elynne Greene, Head of Metro’s victim services: Tuesday, May 26, 2009; After a crime scene is cleaned up, when the detectives are done asking questions, crime victims — or remaining family members — are left alone with their tragedy. This is where Elynne Greene comes in.
Las Vegas man allegedly brought assisted suicide drugs into U.S.: Friday, May 22, 2009; Last week Jeff Ostfeld told his mother he’d return home to Las Vegas in four days. On Monday, when he was arrested at a bridge that connects the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas with Mexico, Ostfeld explained to authorities that he was smuggling animal tranquilizers from Mexico into the United States to help people commit suicide.
Financial help coming for officer’s daughter: Federal program, local fund provide assistance to families of cops killed in line of duty; Monday, May 18, 2009; On the same day Metro Officer James Manor died in his patrol car, the Obama administration released plans to dramatically cut a federal benefits program for the families of cops killed in the line of duty. Now, the president’s proposed cutback does not mean families of slain officers will receive any less in federal death benefits. But the timing does bring to light a dark job: collecting death benefits and raising money for the families of fallen cops.
Passenger on long bus ride may be inmate, riding alone: Money-saving program has shipped federal prisoners unescorted for years; Friday, May 15, 2009; Dwayne Fitzen — “Shadow” to fellow inmates at the federal prison in Waseca, Minn. — was halfway through his 24-year sentence when prison officials decided to move him to a facility in California. To make the transfer, the Bureau of Prisons did something fairly routine for the government agency: It bought Shadow a one-way bus ticket and sent him off alone, traveling unsupervised and unmarked on the two-day trip.
Swine flu lesson: Difference between panic, caution: What news reports have portrayed as overreaction is actually anything but; Tuesday, May 12, 2009; Days after news of swine flu broke, people in white surgical masks were milling around McCarran International Airport — travelers trying to filter a virus out of the air, some carrying, no doubt, little bottles of hand sanitizer in their pockets.
Metro takes break from recruiting officers: Friday, May 8, 2009; Metro Police have canceled all police officer testing until September.
Texting’s troubling side: Technology that’s used to abuse: Bill would make digital stalking a felony; Friday, May 8, 2009; During court-mandated private therapy sessions, teenage victims of domestic violence sit across from social worker Lora Watkins with cell phones in their hands — still sending dozens of text messages to their abusers. It’s maddening, but Watkins, an adolescent domestic violence therapist for nearly a decade, is accustomed to having an unwelcome third participant in the room: the cell phone.
This is a new dimension of domestic abuse and stalking, where an abuser’s reach extends as far as cell phone towers and the Internet will allow.
Fees, long odds stack deck against entrants: Henderson woman has lost thousands on entry fees, bounced checks; Monday, April 20, 2009; Linda is 81 years old. She lives on roughly $2,000 a month. Every day her postal carrier brings her 50 to 120 invitations to enter sweepstakes or solve puzzles for cash prizes. Linda believes she can win these contests, and so she pays the entry fees. In five days last month Linda wrote 40 checks to contest companies, $594.39 in all.
Inmates’ lawsuit could mean trouble for Corrections Department: Medical case could expose flaws in system; Thursday, April 16, 2009; Inmates at Ely State Prison have won the right to pursue a class action lawsuit against the Nevada Corrections Department, and prison officials should be very worried.
Study: Separate police, labs because of bias: Subtle biases contaminate forensic findings when scientists answer to cops, researchers find; Monday, April 13, 2009; The National Academy of Sciences spent two years studying the state of forensic science in America. The resulting report, released in February, isn’t pretty. Forensic science is shoddy, our country’s crime labs are fragmented, forensic scientists aren’t adequately certified and the science of solving crime is dangerously inconsistent.
Potent, legal, mostly unstudied: As media raise hallucinogen’s profile, debate swirls over what should be done; Tuesday, April 7, 2009; Al Grand sells Salvia divinorum, a psychoactive herb that’s wildly controversial — and almost totally unstudied. Since 2005 more than a dozen states have outlawed its sale, use or possession. And though no Nevada politician has moved to follow those examples, the nationwide trend has scientists worried that criminalization of salvia will prevent realization of its medical potential. Yes, salvia gets you high. But someday it might also make you well. And so far, not one study has been published indicating that salvia is addictive or particularly harmful.
One nation, seven sins: Geographers measure propensity for evil in states, counties; Thursday, March 26, 2009; The question of evil and where it lurks has been largely ignored by the scientific community, which is why a recently released study titled “The Spatial Distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins Within Nevada” is groundbreaking: Never before has a state’s fall from grace been so precisely graphed and plotted.
Pimps, Metro's coming for you: Cops’ focus shifts from prostitutes to the hustlers whose tools are manipulation and brutality, and whose goods are people; Friday, March 20, 2009; Thousands of prostitutes are arrested in Clark County every year. They’re criminals, but they’re also victims because, vice detectives will tell you, behind every prostitute is a pimp.
Metro keeps close tabs on fury in the home: Victims of domestic violence gauged for signs of escalation; Wednesday, March 18, 2009; Domestic violence deaths aren’t entirely predictable, but they do follow a pattern. The pattern is so common that it’s calculable.
Sheriff looking for cooperation on budget cuts: Gillespie seeks unions’ help to trim $19 million; Tuesday, March 17, 2009; Doug Gillespie is denying himself a raise this year. The Clark County sheriff is attempting a “zero growth” budget — in other words, he won’t ask for any more money this year than last year.
Andrea Beckman, executive director of the Metro Citizens Review Board: Monday, March 16, 2009; Andrea Beckman minds the minders.
Bill would restrict police use of Tasers: Monday, March 16, 2009; Metro police have purchased just over 1,000 Taser cameras and will begin distributing the recording devices to police on the beat in two weeks. These cameras will capture grainy footage of every electronic zap, though the fate of that footage may be up to the Legislature.
For police in peril, all hands need not be on deck, Metro decides: Wednesday, March 11, 2009; When a 444 call — officer needs help — comes across the police radio, every cop’s first instinct is to speed to the scene.
In cases of ID theft, numbers do lie: Metro reported triple the number of cases in '07 as cited in federal ranking; Friday, March 6, 2009; Nevada has the nation’s third-worst identity theft problem — according to a federal study that wildly underestimates the rates. A Federal Trade Commission report released last week revealed Nevada citizens filed 2,930 identity theft complaints in 2007, enough to rank us third in the nation, per-capita.
Debating the cost of the death penalty: Ignore the moral question for a second and consider this: Execution cases cost millions more than those involving life without parole; Wednesday, March 4, 2009; Forget how you feel about the death penalty — in this economy, in this legislative session, state executions are a question of cost, not conscience. Objecting to the death penalty because of its price tag is actually nothing new in Nevada; it’s the economy that has changed.
Bill aims to give rape victims legal shield others have: Friday, Feb. 27, 2009; Miranda Smith was tired, out late having dinner with friends who were in no rush to leave. So when a guy at the table, someone she trusted, offered a ride home, Smith accepted.
Anti-beard policy puts force in a hairy place: Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009; Did Metro cut off its beard to spite its face when it chose to fight Detective Steve Riback's request to wear a beard and a head covering, in keeping with the laws of his Orthodox Jewish faith?
Many petty thefts, big sting: Metro police uncover shoplifting ring — and sheds full of booty; Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009; Roughly 30 journeyman thieves, working independently and over months, funneled more than $100,000 in stolen merchandise to resale ringleaders, whose three storage sheds were raided by Metro last week. A partial accounting of what detectives found in those sheds includes: 2,078 bottles of various shampoos, 420 razors, 948 razor blade packs, 296 bottles of Axe body spray, 447 sticks of deodorant, 619 bottles of Fantasia Frizz Busters Serum, 150 bottles of tequila, 120 cans of baby formula, 50 full-size jugs of Tide detergent and 475 bottles of Nivea skin lotion.
Sex offender act might not be worth its cost to Nevada: Sunday, Feb. 15, 2009; All the debate over whether the Walsh Act is legal or logical now seems for naught. In this economy, the real question is not whether the Walsh Act is constitutional, but whether it’s too expensive.
Controversy erupts over prosecutors paying witnesses for interviews: Friday, Feb. 13, 2009; A controversy is building at the Clark County courthouse over the district attorney’s office's longstanding practice of paying witnesses for interviews prior to trials.
State holding checks for big names: Treasurer has unclaimed assets for some public officials and many others — maybe even you; Friday, Feb. 6, 2009; Kate Marshall oversees Nevada’s Unclaimed Property Division — basically, money that’s owed to individuals or corporations by people or companies who can’t find them.
Daylight hits covert NLV airline: Lawsuit offers peek at secret jobs for U.S. government in Mideast; Friday, Jan. 30, 2009; Four times a week, pilots working for a North Las Vegas private airline charter company quietly fly to Baghdad and Kabul.
One’s a cop, the other has police union endorsement: Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009; If being denied endorsement by the valley’s largest police union hurt Metro Capt. Stavros Anthony, the Las Vegas City Council candidate hides his wounds well.
Metro approves $350,000 settlement in cap, beard case: Detective allowed to wear beard, baseball cap in current job; Monday, Jan. 26, 2009; The Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee on Monday approved a $350,000 settlement payment to Detective Steve Riback, an Orthodox Jew who sued the department in 2007 after he was prohibited from wearing a beard and head covering, as mandated by his religion.
Metro poised to settle civil rights lawsuit with detective: Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009; Metro Police are preparing to pay a $350,000 settlement to Detective Steve Riback, an Orthodox Jew who sued the department in 2007 after he was prohibited from wearing a head covering and a beard, even though his religion requires it.
News from FBI is good but incomplete: Why drop in crime stats isn’t proof positive; Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009; Chipper is not a good word to describe most FBI press releases. Last week, however, the feds sent out an e-mail with a subject line almost giddy by bureau standards: “SOME GOOD NEWS: Crime Is Declining.”
A duffel bag, a fortune, and heat from the law: For those carrying a million in cash, be prepared for questions if you're stopped; Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009; He was going four miles over the speed limit when troopers pulled him over. But this isn't about him. This is about the cash in his car's trunk, now embroiled in a case titled “United States of America v. $999,830.00 in United States Currency.”
Outing supporters of anti-gay groups: Online blacklist uses campaign donation records to identify people, businesses; Friday, Dec. 26, 2008; The economy has nothing to do with why Pool Chlor lost a client last week.
Checks on cops’ wrongs evolve: Citizen board is shelving its big rubber stamp for internal affairs; Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008; Allyn Goodrich, less than a year into his Metro career, made a rookie cop’s mistake: He saw a jogger trying to cross the road illegally, tried to stop the citizen with a short bleep from his siren speaker and instead activated the entire whooping alarm.
Six Questions for Chad Hardy: Photographer of Mormon beefcake; Monday, Dec. 22, 2008; Chad Hardy made a beefcake calendar — 12 months of returned Mormon missionaries, posing with smiles and without shirts. His “Men on a Mission” calendar sold 10,000 copies. Hardy made international headlines.
Goodbye hot cereal, hello corn flakes: Legislator sees big savings in prison food budget; Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008; Assemblyman James Settelmeyer plans to introduce a bill to eliminate hot breakfasts in Nevada correctional facilities — a move he thinks could save the state $1 million a year.
Body exhumed, science and hope collide: Four families are claiming Jane Doe 95-0050, but an official I.D. appears remote; Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008; County coffins are sunk three deep. They’re made of cardboard and reinforced with metal ribs that hold while the walls fold and fall, wet and floppy, onto themselves. Exhumed after 13 years, one casket bobs to the surface like a brick. A brown, airless box, hoisted out of the earth and into a hearse for the ride back to the coroner’s cold metal table.
Not even prostitution is immune to economics of supply, demand: Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008; The pleasure of Stacie’s company used to cost $450 an hour, but no longer.
Lights out in the big house: Inmate blowback, black market feared when state goes tobaccoless; Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008; Prediction: July 1, 2009, is going to be a nasty day for thousands of Nevada residents. That’s the day the Nevada Department of Corrections bans all tobacco products, on all department grounds, for inmates and corrections officers alike.
Letters of sorrow and need: Teenage prostitutes write to a judge, often revealing more than they intended; Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008; Teenage prostitutes write Judge William Voy letters from detention before sentencing. Their pencil-scratch pleas for leniency are composed on ruled notebook paper, with spelling and grammar so shoddy it often speaks louder than the content of the letter — revealing the circumstances that lead a teenage girl into prostitution, one strained sentence at a time.
Hawking erotic services? Craigslist now has your number: Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008; Mahria is a “beautiful blonde” offering “erotic wrestling” for $100. Dru is charging $80 for an hour of “sensual massage.”
For Taser, suit ends in lose-one, win-one scenario: Jury finds negligence, but judge spares company $5 million punitive payout; Friday, Nov. 28, 2008; Three years ago in Salinas, Calif., police used Tasers to repeatedly shock 40-year-old Robert Heston.
Cops raise Taser safety claims: Metro officers hurt during training sue company, say warnings didn’t suffice; Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008; Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling in a line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up. All they knew of what comes next is this: It’s going to smart.
Metro arrests retired San Diego FBI agent in connection with killing: Friday, Nov. 14, 2008; Metro Police have reportedly arrested a retired San Diego FBI agent in connection with a homicide. The police department's homicide section is expected to release a statement about the case shortly.