Tag Archives: #Crime

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl!

The more I read about crime stories, the more I am convinced that criminals are just plain stupid. They do something really stupid, and then proceed to compound their stupidity by doing something really, really stupid.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

KY woman allegedly hit McDonald’s manager, drove away with her on hood for 6 miles

By Christopher Leach | Tuesday, April 28, 2026 | 4:00 PM EDT

A Central Kentucky woman was arrested Friday, April 24 after she allegedly hit a McDonald’s manager with her vehicle and drove off with the person clinging to the hood, according to court documents.

The incident began late Thursday at the McDonald’s on Versailles Road in Frankfort. Court documents say Autumn West, 38, hit a parked car belonging to the restaurant’s manager, which started an argument between West and the manager.

Video surveillance shows the manager standing in front of West’s car trying to prevent her from leaving, but West accelerates forward, hitting the manager and knocking her onto the hood of the car, according to court documents. West then left the McDonald’s and drove to a home on Lyons Drive, which is about six miles away.

Allow me to say that I’m pretty impressed that the manager was able to hang on to the hood of a car while Miss West (allegedly) drove six miles, at high speeds, trying to shake her off the car.

The manager spoke to police after the incident and said she held on to the car while West drove at a high rate of speed and attempted to shake her off the car. When they got to Lyons Drive, West pulled her off the car by her hair and attacked her, according to court documents.

The manager was able to get West’s keys during the fight, preventing her from driving away. Court documents say she ran away, but West chased after her with a tire iron.

Field sobriety tests indicated that yes, Miss West was, again allegedly, intoxicated. Miss West has been charged with:

  • First-degree attempted assault;
  • KRS §508.030 Fourth-degree assault, a Class A Misdemeanor;
  • KRS §189A.010 Aggravated DUI;
  • Leaving the scene of an accident or failing to render aid;
  • KRS §508.060 First-degree wanton endangerment, a Class D felony, two counts;
  • First-degree criminal mischief;
  • Menacing;
  • Failing to own required insurance; and
  • Failing to produce insurance card

Under KRS §532.020, the penalty for a Class D felony is at least one year to a maximum of five years in the state penitentiary, and the lovely Miss West is facing two felony counts.

The first bit of stupidity was that she had been drinking, and still got in a car to drive. Every other bit of stupidity followed from that. The accused is 38 years old, which ought to more than old enough to know better.

Allegedly, of course.

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A Philadelphia Inquirer sob story about a poor, poor, misunderstood murderer.

The First Street Journal has twice noted the case of Derek Lee, convicted of second degree murder for the killing of Leonard Butler in Pittsburgh. Under Title 18 §2502(b), second degree murder is defined to be “A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the second degree when it is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony.” The penalty for second degree murder in the Keystone State is specified as life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. That’s pretty simple: the murderer is already committing a crime, so even if he wasn’t necessarily planning on killing someone, he was already on the scene, already planning on committing a crime, and prepared to kill if he thought it necessary, even if you were not the person who pulled the trigger.

Whether you’re the guy who fires the fatal shot or not, you’re still a really bad guy, and there’s no good reason for you to ever be put back out on the streets with decent people again.

Derek Lee and a gentleman named Paul Durham broke into Mr Butler’s home. I’ll let The Philadelphia Inquirer give you the details:

In 2014, Lee and Paul Durham pushed their way into a Pittsburgh home armed with a handgun and Taser. Police said they went at the request of the spurned ex-lover of the man living there, Leonard Butler, 44.

Inside, Lee and Durham forced Butler and his girlfriend into the basement. They ordered them to their knees. Lee struck Butler with the gun and used the Taser on him before going upstairs with Butler’s watch.

So, Mr Lee was not only committing a crime, but a violent crime, as he pistol-whipped Mr Butler. This wasn’t just a burglary where the homeowner surprised the criminals, but one in which the criminals were actively attacking the victim.

In the basement, Butler lunged for Durham’s weapon, and in the struggle, Butler was shot and killed.

Both criminals were packing heat that day.

Well, the newspaper is never content at just giving us the facts, but wants to weave a sob story about poor, poor Mr Lee:

Lee grew up in Pittsburgh, a small, wiry boy, the youngest of three children in a close-knit family. He played baseball and basketball, and worked as a youth camp counselor at his grandmother’s church.

His father later moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, splitting the family across state lines. Lee went back and forth between them.

In his teens, Lee’s life shifted. He drifted into street life and graduated high school “by my teeth,” he said.

At that point, at least in the online version of the story, the Inquirer gives us a photo of a smiling Mr Lee, in his graduation gown and holding his diploma.

Have your heartstrings not yet been pulled? Are you not feeling sorry for Mr Lee yet? But the newspaper continues:

When Lee was 18, he and another man shot at a group of basketball players outside a college party. Although five players were injured, none of the bullets from Lee’s gun struck anyone. Lee was convicted of attempted criminal homicide and sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison.

When he was released, Lee’s family welcomed him home with a celebration and his mother’s seven-cheese macaroni. He was 25. He found work as a dishwasher, but struggled to stabilize his life, Lee said.

So, young Mr Lee and his buddies, for whatever their reasons, were armed, and shot into a group of young men outside a party, firing indiscriminately, trying at the very least to shoot some people, and probably hoping to kill some of them. And thus, that good young man, who “worked as a youth camp counselor at his grandmother’s church,” and suffered as the son in a broken home found himself exactly where he belonged: behind bars.

Well, I’m from a broken home, too, but somehow, some way, I never tried to kill anybody due to that.

Mr Lee was then a convicted felon. And that means premeditation when Mr Durham and he broke into Mr Butler’s home, because just by carrying a firearm, Mr Lee was committing a second degree felony under Title 18 §6105.

Then came the burglary and the murder. Mr Lee was a previously convicted felon, in the process of committing more felonies. Apparently his first stint in prison did not teach him the lesson it should have, as the second group of crimes occurred less than a year after he was released from his previous time behind bars.

Why, I have to ask, would any decent people want someone like Mr Lee back out on the streets?

The Inquirer continued with their sob story:

In prison again, Lee said he reached a breaking point. “I just hit that rock-bottom place where I knew I had to do something,” he said.

He turned to religion. He entered a chaplain’s program, and trained service dogs. He also appealed his case himself, and began mentoring incarcerated men serving long or life sentences.

“Society throws away people like us,” Lee said. “It … judges them by one of the worst moments in their life. But I truly believe that people can be redeemed.”

No, Mr Lee, “society” didn’t throw you away: you did that! One of the “worst moments of (his) life”? Mr Leonard didn’t get any further moments in his life; he’s stone-cold graveyard dead because of what Messrs Durham and Lee did.

Naturally, Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, wants to see the murderers previously sentenced under the second degree murder stature given a break:

(Mr Krasner) was joined by several criminal justice advocates, including Saleem Holbrook, executive director of the Abolitionist Law Center, and John Pace, associate director of reentry and engagement at the Youth Sentencing and Re-entry Project. Both men had once been sentenced to life in prison and were later released after U.S. Supreme Court rulings barred mandatory life sentences for juveniles and made those decisions retroactive.

Holbrook stressed that the hundreds of men and women incarcerated under the former law were waiting for an opportunity to be released and show they could contribute meaningfully to their communities.

“(S)how they could contribute meaningfully to their communities”? Yeah, uh huh, right. I have a bridge you can buy, too.

So, what’s the outcome? Mr Lee will have to be resentenced, and his new sentence could still be life, even life without the possibility of parole. But the decision in his case could mean that others in the Keystone State sentenced automatically to life without parole could have their cases reopened for more lenient terms. Some could even be sentenced to time already served, letting actual killers back out on the streets.

The Abolitionist Law Center does not believe anyone should be incarcerated at all, and would if they could opposes all prison sentences, and would, if they could, free every murderer, every rapist, every drug dealer, and every assailant locked up in Pennsylvania’s prisons.

But there’s one person in Mr Lee’s case who cannot be resentenced, and that’s Mr Butler: he was sentenced to death, executed on the spot, and there is no appeal from that.

Despite the efforts of the newspaper to paint Mr Lee as a basically good kid who just made a couple of forgivable mistakes, I remain unmoved. He has already proven himself to be a cancer on civilized life, and should never be allowed to menace decent people again.

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Lawfare! What goes around comes around

Our good friends on the left have been complaining for a while now that the federal Department of Justice has been ‘weaponized’ to go after President Trump’s opponents, but perhaps they ought to consider just who started this s(tuff). We have noted, dozens of times, how the Department of Justice, under now-thankfully-retired President Joe Biden, and the Republican-hating Attorney General Merrick Garland, relentlessly pursued the Capitol kerfufflers. We pointed out the scandal of the FBI surveilling what they called “radical traditionalist Catholics” as an “extremist threat“, and that then-FBI Director Christopher Wray lied through his scummy teeth about the extent of the surveillance. My good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter William Teach has a story this morning on how the far-left persecutor prosecutor in Hennepin County, Minnesota, who grants lenient plea bargains and dismissed charges to real criminals in Minneapolis, wants to put federal law enforcement officers on trial for enforcing immigration laws.

Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, who previously made a fool of himself with his spittle-flecked declaration that he would seek to find state charges against the January 6th Capitol kerfufflers who were pardoned by President Trump, despite the fact that the vast majority had already served their sentences, wants to do the same thing.

And now we have this, from the very much pro-prenatal infanticide Philadelphia Inquirer:

Biden’s Justice Department was overly aggressive in prosecuting a Bucks County antiabortion activist, Trump administration says

In a nearly-900 page report, officials said the prosecution of Bucks County resident Mark Houck — which ended with an acquittal — was an example of how the Biden administration “weaponized” the law.

by Chris Palmer | Tuesday, April 14, 2026 | 3:15 PM EDT

The Justice Department on Tuesday said federal prosecutors under former President Joe Biden “weaponized” the law to target people with antiabortion views, and said one of the key examples was a case in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia charged a Bucks County activist with seeking to intimidate workers and patients outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. That case ended in an acquittal.

Note the important part: Mark Houck was acquitted by a jury of his peers! The trial lasted five days, and the jury returned the verdict in just an hour; Mr Houck faced up to eleven years in prison.

Unlike the vast majority of the Capitol kerfufflers, almost all of whom were normal, working-class people, Mr Houck had solid legal help, as the Chicago-based Catholic public-interest law firm Thomas More Society sent attorneys to take up his case. St Thomas More was a previous ally of King Henry VIII who withdrew from public life when the King attacked the Catholic Church, all to secure a divorce, but was executed anyway for refusing to accept the King as head of the church in England.

In a nearly 900-page report released Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s administration said the Justice Department under Biden and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland was biased in how it sought to enforce the FACE Act, a federal law that makes it a crime to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone at abortion clinics, pregnancy centers, or houses of worship.

The report said that the Justice Department in previous years “ignored and downplayed” complaints unless they came from abortion advocates, and that it collaborated with abortion advocacy groups, sought tougher sentences against people who opposed abortion, and “engaged in inappropriate conduct and comments” while prosecuting abortion opponents.

The report is the first to be issued by the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group,” an initiative created by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to respond to Trump’s belief that past administrations had unfairly — if not illegally — manipulated the law to target political opponents.

Reporter Chris Palmer’s article noted that rather than allowing Mr Houck to turn himself in, the FBI sent sixteen armed agents to his home to arrest him, and noted several other points in the vindictiveness of the Biden Administration in pursuing him. Sanjay Patel, who aggressively pushed for the indictment, was recently fired by the Department of Justice, as were three other attorneys.

During his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump said that his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would be thrown in jail, and his supporters kept chanting “Lock her up!” throughout his term, but the Justice Department never filed charges against her. It was the Biden Administration which began the policy of pursuing legal action against Mr Trump and his supporters.

This far, there have been few actual criminal cases filed against Biden Administration officials, but many have lost their jobs. Former Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was tried and convicted for obstruction of justice for trying to help illegal immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, agents as he was about to leave the courthouse; Mr Flores-Ruiz was successfully arrested following a foot chase, pleaded guilty to illegal re-entry following a previous deportation, and has been deported.

Judge Dugan is scheduled to be sentenced on June 3rd, and while she faces up to five years in the big house, it is considered unlikely that, as a first offender, she will actually receive time behind bars.

Thoroughly biased Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg was recently bitch-slapped by a three-judge appeals court panel for trying to prevent illegals from being deported, but he has faced no criminal charges.

Now Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard Williams has sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice over a conspiracy which resulted in the failed first impeachment of President Trump.

There are still 2¾ years remaining in the Trump Administration, and there remains plenty of time for the Democrats and obstructionists to find themselves criminally charged. Remember: they started this s(tuff), and what goes around, comes around!

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! Yet another public school teacher accused of trying to become sexually involved with a student

There was no one more disappointed than I was when The Philadelphia Inquirer and then-Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams started going after the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for covering up sexual abuses by Catholic priests, or the horrible statistics when the John Jay Report, The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002 was released. Priests should be above the sexual abuse, and sometimes outright rape, that was documented.

Alas! it seems that (supposedly) celibate priests have not been the only ones engaging in the sexual abuse of minors. The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 exposed a whole other world of adult men trying to diddle teenaged girls, and if the left have been trying everything they could to tie it to President Trump — something the Biden Administration could not do when it had possession of the Epstein evidence for four years, despite all of their attempts to disqualify and jail Mr Trump before the 2024 elections — it’s clear that plenty of other miscreants had been enjoying themselves on “Epstein Island.”

Nevertheless, those were the wealthy and powerful, those who thought they could do no wrong. But what we have been seeing more and more these days is not the wealthy and powerful, but ordinary, working-class citizens, heavily tilted towards public school teachers.

KY substitute teacher, assistant coach charged with sexually abusing student

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | March 30, 2026 | 5:50 PM EDT

Bardstown police arrested a Bardstown High School substitute teacher on Monday and charged her with sexually abusing a student, police and school officials said.

Mary “Hanna” Mattingly, 31, was charged with first-degree sexual abuse and procuring or promoting use of a minor by electronic means, police said.

No, of course the Lexington Herald-Leader did not publish Miss Mattingly’s photograph, despite the fact it was available as a public record and has been available online from several other sources. The First Street Journal does publish those mugshots, and I use them whenever I can find them.

Bardstown City Schools’ Superintendent Ryan Clark confirmed Mattingly was also an assistant high school girls’ soccer coach.

Mattingly was listed in that role on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association website for the last two seasons.

Clark said in a statement that an anonymous letter was received Thursday “alleging inappropriate conduct by a female substitute teacher and a Bardstown High School juvenile.“

“Bardstown City Schools immediately initiated an investigation, removed the individual from her job duties, placed her on administrative leave, and alerted the authorities,” the school district’s statement said.

Several stories noted that Miss Mattingly (allegedly) communicated with the student on more than one occasion, a record of persistence. WBRD reported, “It had been going on for several months,” Bardstown Police Detective Eric Williamson said Wednesday. “Social media was the main avenue for the communication.”

But what none of the stories I could find told us whether the student she contacted was male or female. That is a frequent enough occurrence for me to conclude that the credentialed media do not want anyone to infer that homosexuality is in any way connected to sexual abuse, even though the John Jay Report noted that 81% of the victims of sexual abuse by an all-male clergy were boys. We have previously noted how The Philadelphia Inquirer tried to conceal the fact that a teenaged murderer was transgendered, and you’ll find several more such stories on this site.

I take no inference in the specific case of Miss Mattingly, though I’d note from her photo that she’s pretty enough to have attracted plenty of attention from adult men. Bardstown had a Census Bureau estimated population of 14,104 on July 1, 2024, and isn’t a particularly poor place as small towns in the Bluegrass State go.

Miss Mattingly is listed as being 31 years old, and that means she is certainly old enough to have known better than to mess with a student. There have been enough stories in the media concerning adults in general, and adult teachers specifically, going after minor students, that no one with an IQ above room temperature could have been unaware that attempting a sexual relationship with a minor, with a public school student, was tremendously dangerous. And no teacher of any experience could be unaware that students talk; this stuff can’t be kept secret for long.

Miss Mattingly is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Has The Philadelphia Inquirer changed its policies on publishing photos of accused sex offenders?

We noted, on April Fool’s Day, something which wasn’t foolish, that The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has a stated policy of not publishing mug shots chose to publish the photo of a woman charged with, but not yet convicted of, grooming a student for sex, something which allegedly began when the boy was only twelve.

Now we have this story:

Montco teacher who tried to coerce a teenage student to kiss him sent to county jail

John Richards IV told the 13-year-old she was beautiful, and asked if he could kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip last year.

by Vinny Vella | Monday, April 6, 2026 | 4:53 PM EDT

John Richards IV spent a decade working as a teacher, dedicating his life, he told a judge Monday, to a vocation he felt was his calling.

But Richards, 58, ruined his career and his reputation by betraying the authority granted to him, Montgomery County Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman said as she sentenced Richards to 9 to 23 months in jail for attempting to sexually assault a 13-year-old student.

“The actions that bring us here today are horrific,” Ferman said. “He made a victim out of a girl who wanted nothing more than to be a student. There has to be a severe punishment, otherwise it would diminish the seriousness of this case.”

Richards, of Newtown Square, wrote a message in March 2025 to the girl, a student in his eighth-grade science class at Blockson Middle School in Norristown, telling her that she was beautiful, prosecutors said Monday. He asked permission to kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip to Washington he was chaperoning the next day.

So, Mr Richards was just plain stupid. He made all sorts of excuses for what he did — Mr Richards pleaded guilty to the charges — blaming loneliness among other things, but he wasn’t smart enough to look for women who were actually adults and not under his supervisory authority. Teachers cannot be unaware of what’s been happening to their fellow teachers when they try to form romantic or sexual relationships with minor students. His sentence is for stupidity as much as anything else.

“Looking back at it now, I’m appalled that I could’ve done something so reprehensible,” Richards said. “I think I was in a bad, lonely place, and I was looking to be seen in any way possible.”

Richards blamed what he called a lapse in judgment on what he described as ineffective medication to treat his ADHD diagnosis. He asked the judge for leniency, saying that his three children had already been given life sentences by the “court of public opinion.”

Well, of course he’s going to say anything he could to avoid jail!

But, what interested me more was that the newspaper published his photo[1]I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to … Continue reading. The newspaper’s stated policy stated their reasons:

  • Because of longstanding racial disparities in arrest rates, mugshots disproportionately feature Black and Latinx people. Unrelenting, routine publication of such mugshots strengthens stereotypes and contributes to systemic racism.
  • Pre-conviction mugshots are inherently unfair, depicting suspects as criminals before guilt or innocence has been established.
  • Online, mugshots exist indefinitely, easily findable through search engines. Years after the alleged offense, mugshots on Inquirer.com or other news sites can make it harder for individuals to find jobs and move on with their lives.
  • Many published mugshots feature private individuals, charged with routine crimes. They are frequently published out of habit. The news value of these photos is often negligible

Mr Richards pleaded guilty, so the second reason would not apply to his case. However, Ashley Fisler, who was featured in the story we previously noted, has not been convicted, so the second listed reason should have applied.

Both Mr Richards and Miss Fisler are white; some might assume that, given the newspaper’s stated reasoning, the first reason given wouldn’t apply to them. But that third reason, that publishing the photos might make it more difficult for the accused to find new jobs and move on with their lives, certainly does apply. Mr Richards is 58, and the Inquirer’s story did not specify whether he will lose whatever retirement pension he has from the school system, but Miss Fisler is only 36; retirement is a long way away for her. Technically, neither photo is a mugshot, but shouldn’t the same reasons apply to other pictures?

It’s an obvious question: has the Inky changed its policies for accused sex offenders? If so, the newspaper should tell us!

References

References
↑1 I chose to screen capture the newspaper’s Twitter blurb to publicize the story, rather than copy the one directly in the article, to avoid copyright issues. The Twitter feed is open to retweeting, meaning that the newspaper is giving open permission to spread the story and the photo. Our regular readers — both of them — may have noticed that is our normal way of doing things. The photo used by the newspaper in the tweet is the same one published in the story, and which appeared on the newspaper’s website main page, as screen captured here on Tuesday, April 7th, at 10:55 AM EDT.
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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! I'm sure that he only crossed the border to build a better life for himself!

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Lexington Herald-Leader, now under the leadership of Executive Editor Jeremy Chisenhall, chose not, in two separate stories, to publish the mug shot of Jorge Luis Martinez Ulloa, 31, charged with:

  • one count of kidnapping a minor;
  • two counts of first-degree rape of a victim younger than 12;
  • two counts of first-degree sodomy of a victim younger than 12; and
  • two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a victim younger than 12.

Fortunately, the Department of Homeland Security has no qualms about publishing photos of illegal immigrants apprehended for serious crimes!

Man accused of kidnapping, sexually abusing minor in Lexington has ICE detainer

By Christopher Leach | Monday, March 30, 2026 | 3:45 PM EDT

Court documents indicate Martinez Ulloa is not a U.S. citizen and was born in Mexico. No other information about his immigration status was available.

Perhaps reporter Christopher Leach didn’t have more information about Mr Martinez Ulloa’s immigration status, but Homeland Security’s tweet stated that he had entered the US at least four times during the Obama and Biden Administrations, and a fifth time at an unknown date.

Lexington police said they were dispatched to the 1300 block of Davenport Drive, in the Cardinal Valley neighborhood, for a juvenile assault victim. Martinez Ulloa was arrested and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center.

Davenport Drive, spelled Devenport on Google Maps, is a neighborhood of mixed single-family homes and smaller apartment buildings. Parts of the Cardinal Valley neighborhood are also known, colloquially, as Little Mexico.

Court documents say Martinez Ulloa grabbed the victim by her arm and neck, trapped her inside his apartment and raped her. The girl was a stranger to Martinez Ulloa and told officials the only way out of his apartment was through a window.

The victim was sent to a local hospital for treatment, police said.

Martinez Ulloa was arraigned in Fayette District Court Monday afternoon. He appeared virtually from the jail. Fayette District Judge Melissa Murphy left Martinez Ulloa’s bond unchanged at $100,000. A preliminary hearing in his case has been scheduled for April 7.

Mr Martinez Ulloa has not been convicted of anything, but it appears than simply being previously deported means nothing to him other than the annoyance of taking another trip north of the border.

Under KRS §510.040, the first degree rape of a child under 12 is a Class A felony, which, under KRS §532.020 carries a sentence of at least twenty and not more than fifty years, or possibly life in prison. Under KRS §510.070, the first degree sodomy of a child under 12 is a Class A felony as well.

If Mr Martinez is guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused, he should spend the rest of his miserable life in the worst prison the Commonwealth has. If the evidence against him is solid, his attorney, the Department of Public Advocacy, will undoubtedly seek some sort of lenient plea bargain; this must be rejected! If he is guilty, he should never see the light of day again as a free man.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl!

Color me shocked that The Philadelphia Inquirer published the photo of an accused criminal. Technically, it isn’t a mugshot, so perhaps it’s allowed under a very narror interpretation of the newspaper’s stated mugshot policy. but I couldn’t find the newspaper’s Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — blurb, so I screen captured the image from the article itself. Since the photo caption states it was from a New Jersey state Supreme Court video, there isn’t a copyright issue.

Former South Jersey teacher charged with sexual assault began grooming student when he was 12, prosecutor alleges

Ashley Fisler was charged last week with sexually assaulting a former student at Orchard Valley Middle School in Washington Township.

by Melanie Burney | April Fool’s Day, 2026 | 3:33 PM EDT

A former Washington Township middle school teacher began grooming a student for a sexual relationship when he was 12 and abused him for years, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The allegations against Ashley Fisler, who was charged last week with sexually assaulting a former student at Orchard Valley Middle School, were detailed during a detention hearing to determine whether she should be released pending trial. Superior Court Judge William Ziegler said he would issue a decision Thursday.

Note that Miss Fisler has been charged but not yet convicted. The newspaper stated that “Pre-conviction mugshots are inherently unfair, depicting suspects as criminals before guilt or innocence has been established.”

Fisler, who is no longer working as a teacher, is charged with six counts of sexual assault of a minor and one count each of endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct of a public servant.

“This was more than just six isolated acts of sex abuse against a minor,” said Kylie Finley, an assistant Gloucester County prosecutor. “This was a pattern of six years of grooming, manipulation, and abuse by this defendant as a middle school teacher against one of her active and former students.”

Miss Fisler, now 36, left the school system in 2023.

Teachers are all college educated, with at least a bachelor’s degree, and are normally pressured to be working toward their master’s as well. They really can’t be unaware of the scandal by Mary Kay Letourneau, and the fact that Mrs Letourneau spent years behind bars for it. Public schools have orientation lessons for all teachers, and inappropriate relationships are surely discussed. The news of Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest in 2019 was national news, and Miss Fisler couldn’t have missed it. You just can’t expect this s(tuff) to stay hidden forever.

Well, if the allegations are true, she’s in a heap o’ trouble.

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What The Philadelphia Inquirer told us . . . and what they didn’t.

We have pointed out, several times, that it is illegal to work in the United States unless you are a citizen or have the appropriate legal documents. In the last linked article, referencing a Philadelphia Inquirer sob story about an illegal immigrant identified only by her surname Guzman we pointed out:

Miss Guzman doesn’t have a husband or boyfriend living with her, so there’s (probably) no real, legal financial support there. That leaves four possibilities:

  1. Miss Guzman presented forged documents saying she was eligible to work in the United States, which is a felony;
  2. Miss Guzman’s employer hired her knowing that she did not have the proper documents, which would be a felony by both Miss Guzman and the employer;
  3. Miss Guzman is living off welfare, for which she is ineligible, and would have had to have presented forged documents to the social workers, a felony; or
  4. Miss Guzman has been working for cash, which means she is evading income and Social Security taxes, which is a felony.

Saturday’s Inquirer noted that a lot of the illegals in the City of Brotherly Love are probably engaging in a least some of the time in option number four:

Philly’s gig economy runs on immigrant workers. Now that labor pool is shrinking amid tougher ICE enforcement.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning.

by Jeff Gammage | Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

Are you waiting longer for the rideshare driver to show up? Or for that burger and fries to be delivered to your door? Does it all cost more?

Here’s part of the reason: stricter immigration enforcement. And not just the arrest and deportation of workers who lack official permission to be in the country, but the fear that those arrests have engendered among others, dissuading them from taking similar gig jobs. That as legal pathways into the country for other immigrant workers have been curtailed.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning. It runs on immigrant workers, but the Trump administration’s effort to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history is shrinking the labor pool.

“The demand [for gig services] is not going away,” said Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League. “The fact that we have so many foreign-born workers in this country, and so many of them are under threat, it’s inevitably going to drive costs up or services down.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what is the “gig economy”?

(T)he gig economy is a labor market made up of freelance or part-time workers who work a “gig” to supplement their income or simply work as they wish.

It’s easy to join this labor market because jobs or tasks are usually accepted through an online app or platform.

In the US, the gig economy has provided millions of people with the ability to work independently and is projected to increase in years to come.

Translation: these are people working without regular employment, people paid either in cash (less probably) or by a check, but without deductions withheld for taxes. If paid by check, an employer is supposed to issue them a Form 1099, if the “individual contractor” has been paid more than $600 over the year, showing the amount paid to the individual, but if an individual has six “gigs”, there is no particular reason he could choose to report only three or four. If the individual has not provided a legitimate Social Security or Tax ID number, the government might not be able to track him. Gig jobs like the delivery job Mr Gammage used as an example frequently get tips in cash rather than as part of their bill.

It’s easy to see why an “independent contractor” would under-report. The Social Security/Medicare tax rate in 7.65% for both the employer and employee, but a gig worker who was just paid what he earned is responsible for both, a 15.3% tax on all income received. How many people can pony up 15.3% of their total earnings once a year, in the spring? For every $10.00 they can under-report results in $1.53 in taxes they don’t have to send the Infernal Revenue Service.

For every $1000.00 they can underreport, that’s $153.00 they avoid sending the government. For someone delivering for Door Dash or some other service, $153.00 is probably real money, and that’s an encouragement to cheat.

ICE does not release local figures, but nationally, arrests of immigrants are surging. Those arrests, detentions, and deportations, and the fear among immigrant workers that they could be next, is subtracting people from the labor force. That and the reduction of humanitarian-entry programs and new limits on work sponsorship mean there are simply fewer workers available, as the national, foreign-born labor force has declined by an estimated 750,000 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.

Hmmm. I would have hoped that number would have been higher. As we have previously reported, the Inquirer has reported an illegal immigrant population of between 47,000 and 76,000 people just in Philly.

Mr Gammage’s story was intended to convey to readers that immigration enforcement is pushing up inflation; he might not have intended to point out that the gig workers, which even he pointed out that “Gig platforms are among the last accessible labor markets for undocumented workers, because the E-Verify system generally does not apply there,” might be evading taxes. All it takes is reading his story closely, to see what he told readers, and what he didn’t.

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Why don’t the left at least want to get rid of the really bad guys who are here illegally?

I really can understand how some generous and kind and good-hearted Americans could have sympathy and support for those immigrants, even those here illegally, who have been committing no crimes other than those related to being in our country illegally, those simply trying to live a decent life for their families and themselves, being respectable members of their communities. But I can’t understand how there are Americans who want to protect those illegals who are here breaking non-immigration-related laws.

ICE arrests Latin Kings member after NYC sanctuary release despite assault charge on first responder

DHS says Bryan David Tasiguano Leon, an Ecuadorian national, was arrested by ICE on March 4 after the NYPD freed him over federal objection

By Louis Casiano, Fox News | Friday, March 27, 2026 | 6:34 PM EDT

An illegal immigrant gang member accused of assaulting a first responder was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after he was released by New York City authorities despite him posing a danger to public safety, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

Bryan David Tasiguano Leon, an Ecuadorian citizen, was arrested by the New York Police Department on Feb.14 on suspicion of assault on a first responder. He has a prior arrest for assault and family neglect.

Leon, a member of the Latin Kings, was subsequently released from custody despite ICE having lodged a detainer with the NYPD so he could be transferred to federal authorities, DHS said.

Who are the “Latin Kings“? They are an Hispanic street and in-prison gang, of extremely unsavory reputation. When they’re around, decent people are not safe.

“New York sanctuary politicians chose to release this Latin Kings gang member from jail back not New York City communities,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. “This gang member was previously arrested for assault on a first responder and family neglect.”

ICE agents arrested Leon on March 4 during immigration enforcement operations in New York City. He remains in ICE custody pending deportation proceedings.

And, of course, there’s this:

Leon first illegally entered the United States around Nov. 11, 2022 through the southern border and was released into the country by the Biden administration. He was issued a final order of removal by a judge on Feb. 27, 2025.

Who can be surprised that the Biden Administration turned this guy loose in the US. And, since there is already a final order of removal against him, he doesn’t need to be held in ICE custody; the government can simply ship him straight back to his native Ecuador.

My good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter William Teach reported earlier today on the efforts of the Pyrite State to “audit the operation of joint intelligence centers where federal, state, and local agencies share information,” saying that “CalMatters investigations last year and last month found instances where local law enforcement agencies shared license plate information with ICE or the Border Patrol, violating state law.” California is trying to protect illegals!

I would hope that if the police/sheriff’s departments/prisons and jails don’t formally notify ICE when a criminal illegal is about to be released, due to the completion of sentences or releases on bail, patriotic officers would do so covertly.