Former Bank Teller Pleads Guilty to Federal Charge For Stealing More Than $185,000 From Homeless Customer

(USJusticeDepartment) WASHINGTON – A former bank teller pled guilty today to stealing more than $185,000 from a longtime customer of the bank, a homeless man, announced U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu and Andrew Vale, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Phelon Davis, 29, of District Heights, Md., pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to interstate transportation of stolen property. The charge carries a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison and potential financial penalties. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Davis faces a likely range of 18 to 30 months in prison and a potential fine. The plea agreement calls for Davis to pay $185,440 in restitution and an equal amount in a forfeiture money judgment. Davis will be sentenced at a later date by the Honourable Emmet G. Sullivan.

According to a statement of offense submitted at the plea hearing, Davis worked in 2014 as a teller at a national bank in Washington, D.C. One of the bank’s longtime customers, who was homeless and earned money as a street vendor, maintained more than one account with the bank. However, by October 2014, his accounts had gone dormant due to a lack of activity.

In October 2014, the customer attempted to deposit thousands of dollars into one of his accounts. Because he lacked identification and the accounts had gone into dormant status, Davis instructed the customer where to go to obtain identification documents and a Social Security card. In reviewing the customer’s accounts, Davis noticed that the customer had a surprisingly large balance. As a result, Davis devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain the customer’s money.

Later that month, Davis used the identification means of the customer to fraudulently open a new account in the customer’s name. He forged the customer’s signature on the application and had an ATM card issued for the newly opened account. Over the next two years, without the customer’s knowledge, Davis logged into the customer’s accounts online and transferred money between the accounts. All told, from approximately Oct. 22, 2014 through Oct. 26, 2016, Davis used ATMs on 144 occasions to withdraw $185,440 from the customer’s accounts. The customer, meanwhile, did not receive bank statements during this time, did not use e-mail, and did not have access to a computer.

Davis used the stolen money for his personal benefit, including funding a down payment on his residence, paying off personal debt, and paying for vacations in Jamaica, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico.

In announcing the plea, U.S. Attorney Liu and Assistant Director in Charge Vale commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office. They also expressed appreciation for the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Criminal Investigator Shannon Alexis, Paralegal Specialist Jessica Mundi, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kondi Kleinman, who is prosecuting the matter. (ontinueReading

Catalonia on collision course as banned referendum nears

- Barcelona, Spain (CNN) Spanish and Catalan authorities appeared set on a collision course Friday ahead of a disputed independence referendum that has polarized the country.

Catalonia's separatist government is adamant it will go ahead with Sunday's referendum despite the country's highest court barring it as unconstitutional.

Spain's central government insists the referendum is illegal, must not go ahead and that the result will not be recognized. It has drafted in thousands of extra police to try to prevent the vote taking place.
In the run-up to the vote, Catalan officials have accused the Spanish authorities of trying to suppress the people's democratic rights.

Joan Maria Piqué, international communications director for the government of Catalonia, told CNN on Friday that 200,000 ballot papers had been confiscated this week -- on top of almost 10 million the Spanish government said it had seized on September 20, along with voter lists and other paperwork.
According to Piqué, 14 Catalan government officials have been arrested over the referendum and 150 websites suspended. Mobile phones have also been seized.

The Spanish Data Protection Agency said in a statement Friday that people working in the polling stations could be fined up to 300,000 euros ($354,000) for doing so.

Despite the government's warnings, Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull told reporters Friday that there would be 2,315 polling stations where people can vote, mostly inside schools. More than 5.3 million voters are on the electoral roll, according to the Catalan government.

Public support for the referendum within Catalonia, a wealthy region in Spain's northeast, has become increasingly vocal as the vote has neared. (ontinueReading

Entire island evacuated as volcanoes rumble in Bali and Vanuatu

(CNN)Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Indonesian island of Bali and on Ambae island in Vanuatu as two volcanoes threaten to erupt.

The entire population of Ambae is being moved from the path of the "increasingly active" Marano volcano, also known as Lombenben, according to the Pacific nation's government.

On the Indonesian island of Bali, more than 134,000 people have been taken to shelters as authorities warn that Mount Agung, in the island's north, could erupt at any time.

Both volcanoes sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic activity that stretches 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from New Zealand to South America.
That they're showing signs of erupting at the same time is pure coincidence, said Benjamin Andrews, of the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program. (ontinueReading

Iraqi Kurds vote in favor of independence as crisis escalates

via washingtonpost.com IRBIL, Iraq — Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede from Iraq, with 92.7 percent approving a controversial referendum that was held Monday, according to an official tally released Wednesday.

While Kurds celebrated the result in the streets of their semiautonomous enclave in northern Iraq, the bid for independence continued to roil Iraq’s central government and powerful regional neighbors Turkey and Iran and is shaping up to usher in a period of contentious wrangling over its implementation.

Early Wednesday, Iraqi lawmakers authorized Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to deploy troops to a disputed city in northern Iraq and urged for legal action against Kurdish leaders as a showdown escalated over the vote. The parliament also called for the government to take control of all oil fields in the Kurdish region, bringing them under control of the ministry of oil.

Several regional airlines said they would suspend flights to airports in the Kurdish region in a sign of Baghdad’s pressure to try to punish and isolate the Kurds.

The vote has led to a tense standoff between the Kurdistan regional administration and Baghdad, setting off a crisis that has spiraled beyond Iraq’s borders.

The move toward autonomy, a long cherished dream for millions of Kurds, was vehemently opposed by the United States as well as Turkey and Iran, which have worried about their own restive Kurdish populations.

Several regional powers have threatened to impose a raft of punishing sanctions to forestall any further steps toward independence and force the Kurds to negotiate with Baghdad. Both Iran and Turkey have separately held military exercises along their borders with the Kurdish region ahead and since the vote.

Though it opposed the referendum and has since said it is disappointed the Kurds went ahead with it, the United States State Department said on Tuesday it would not effect Washington’s long-standing partnership with the regional government.

The flight suspensions, by Lebanese and Egyptian carriers, came after Abadi ordered Kurdish authorities to surrender control of the airports to the central government in Baghdad by Friday. If the order was ignored, he said, flights to the airports would be stopped.

In a speech to parliament on Wednesday, Abadi also demanded the annulment of the independence vote, saying Iraq would “not allow any violation of the constitution.”

“We will impose the rule of Iraq in all of the areas of the KRG, with the strength of the constitution,” he added. “There will be no fighting between the sons of one country, but we will impose the law, you will see.” (ontinueReading

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Related: Opinion: Independent Kurdistan Looks Like a Zimbabwe in the Making

Rights group accuses Myanmar of crimes against humanity

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YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar is committing crimes against humanity in its campaign against Muslim insurgents in Rakhine state, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, calling for the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions and an arms embargo.

The U.N. refugee agency called for a redoubling of international aid for the 480,000 refugees - 60 percent of them children - who have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25 to escape the violence.

A Myanmar government spokesman rejected the accusation of crimes against humanity, saying there was no evidence.

Myanmar has also rejected U.N. accusations that its forces are engaged in ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in response to coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on the security forces on Aug. 25.

Refugees arriving in Bangladesh have accused the army and Buddhist vigilantes of trying to drive Rohingya out of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

“The Burmese military is brutally expelling the Rohingya from northern Rakhine state,” said James Ross, legal and policy director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“The massacres of villagers and mass arson driving people from their homes are all crimes against humanity.”

Myanmar, also known as Burma, says its forces are fighting terrorists responsible for attacking the police and the army, killing civilians and torching villages.

The International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as acts including murder, torture, rape and deportation “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack”.

Human Rights Watch said its research, supported by satellite imagery, had found crimes of deportation, forced population transfers, murder and rape. (ontinueReading

Kurds in Iraq vote in historic referendum for independence

washingtonpost.com - IRBIL, Iraq — Kurds packed polling stations across northern Iraq on Monday in a historic referendum on independence despite vigorous opposition from the country’s central government as well as regional and world powers.

Church bells tolled and imams implored Kurds to go out and vote over mosque loudspeakers when polls opened across the Kurdish region, a wide swath of mountains, oil fields and desert that has been run as a semiautonomous enclave for decades.

Local news showed prominent Kurdish figures casting their ballots, proudly displaying the purple voter mark on their fingers in what they described as a national duty to begin the slow process of secession from the Iraqi state.

The poll is expected to produce an overwhelming “yes” vote that many Kurds see as the culmination of a century-long and bloody struggle for self-determination. Kurdish authorities said 3.9 million people are eligible to vote. Irbil-based Rudaw TV said turnout reached at least 76 percent with long lines at some polling stations, citing election officials.

Results could be expected within 72 hours of polls closing at 6 p.m. Monday (11 a.m. Eastern time).

But there are fears that the vote could set off another unpredictable and destabilizing cascade across the region.

Neighboring Turkey and Iran worry that Iraq Kurdish secession could further embolden their own Kurdish minorities, including a separatist faction that has fought Turkish forces since the 1980s.

The United States, traditionally a strong ally of Iraq’s Kurds, has said the timing of the referendum threatens the fight against the Islamic State amid claims that the militant group is on its last legs. U.S. officials also worry that the Kurdish move will weaken Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ahead of national elections next year while empowering sectarian political forces.

For his part, Abadi tried up to the last minute to block the vote, and Iraqi leaders insist they will not recognize the outcome — setting up a potential political standoff.

But Iraq Kurds appeared intent on sending a powerful message as a distinct political force with a culture, language and history of their own. Many voters perceived the referendum as a symbol of their unity and separate political path, rather than an immediate separation from Iraq. (ontinueReading

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Related: Assyrian Expert: Support for Kurdish Self-Governance in Syria Will ‘Kill Christianity’

Assyrian statehood: preventing a rupture in Kurdish-American relations

Germany election: Merkel wins fourth term, says exit polls

BBC - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term in federal elections, exit polls suggest.

Her conservative CDU/CSU alliance won 32.5% of the vote, remaining the largest party in Germany's parliament, according to the ARD poll.

Its outgoing coalition partner, the social democratic SPD, said it would go into opposition after winning 20%.

In a result which shocked many, the nationalist AfD was on track to win 13.5%, making it the third party.

Addressing supporters, Mrs Merkel said she had hoped for a "better result" and talked about "extraordinary challenges".

She would listen, she said, to the "concerns and anxieties" of AfD voters in order to win them back.

The numbers mean the SPD, led by Martin Schulz, has fallen to a new post-World War Two low.

Mr Schulz said the result was the end of the "grand coalition" with Mrs Merkel's alliance.

"It's a difficult and bitter day for social democrats in Germany," he told supporters. "We haven't reached our objective."

AfD's performance, better than forecast in opinion polls, means the right-wing party will have seats in the Bundestag for the first time.

Prominent AfD figure Frauke Petry said on Twitter (in German) that Germany had experienced an incomparable "political earthquake".

The exit poll puts the Liberal FDP on 10.5%; the Greens on 9.5% and Die Linke (The Left) on 9%.

Mrs Merkel will now have to search for new coalition partners, a process that could take months. (ontinueReading

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