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Manhattan DA to retry Pedro Hernandez in the kidnapping and killing of Etan Patz in 1979

admin - Latest News - November 25, 2025
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The Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced Tuesday that it would retry the man they convicted once before for the 1979 murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz



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October 24, 2025
Oct. 23, 2025, 8:14 PM EDTBy Rob WileCard-reading contact lenses, X-ray poker tables, trays of poker chips that read cards, hacked shuffling machines that predict hands. The technology alleged to have been used to execute a multistate, rigged poker operation sounds like it’s straight out of Hollywood. And those were only some of the gadgets that authorities say were used to swindle millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims through rigged, high-dollar, underground poker games over more than five years. A sprawling indictment unsealed Thursday by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York charged Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, and Damon Jones, a former NBA player, along with members of the Mafia and dozens of other defendants, with being part of a conspiracy. The victims were “at the mercy of concealed technology, including rigged shuffling machines and specially designed contacts lenses and sunglasses to read the backs of playing cards, which ensured that the victims would lose big,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella of Brooklyn said in a statement.Cheating at poker is as old as poker itself. But today, wearable tech and nano-cameras are putting even upstanding poker players on their guard.The gadgetsThe defendants used “special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards,” Nocella said at a news conference announcing the indictments.He also showed a photo of an X-ray table that “could read cards face down on the table … because of the X-ray technology.”An X-ray poker table in an image from defendant Robert Stroud’s iCloud account.U.S. Justice Department“Defendants used other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers, which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera,” he said.And while marking poker cards so they are visible only with special eyewear is an old trick, new radio-frequency identification and infrared technologies have ramped up the sophistication levels. Technically speaking, many of the devices involved in the alleged scam authorities detailed Thursday are relatively cheap to manufacture, said Sal Piacente, a gaming security consultant.By the time they reach their customers, however, the cost of industrial shufflers or tables can easily approach $100,000, once distributors and middlemen are factored in.“You could make a lucrative career buying this stuff,” Piacente said.Casino and gaming security consultants told NBC News that the alleged scheme was possible only because the games were underground. In backrooms, there was none of the surveillance tech that reputable casinos use to catch players cheating.“A lot of the features which made this scheme so successful would have been ID’d a lot sooner, or very quickly, in a traditional regulated gaming environment,” said Ian Messenger, a former U.K. law enforcement officer and author of a book about casino security. The DeckmateMore than any other tech, it was the reprogramming of the industrial card shufflers — identified in charging documents as Deckmate-brand machines — that authorities said was key to the alleged game rigging.A DeckMate 2 shuffler taken apart on a table in an image from defendant Shane Hennen’s iCloud account. U.S. Justice DepartmentDeckmates are not sold directly to the public, only to casinos. The ones at the high-dollar games cited in the indictment could read cards and predict which player had the best hand. Neither Deckmate nor its parent company, Light & Wonder, were implicated in any way in Thursday’s indictments. A spokesman for Light & Wonder told NBC News in a statement that the company was aware of reports about the charges against people but said they were not affiliated with the company. “We sell and lease our automatic card shufflers and other gaming products and services only to licensed casinos and other licensed gaming establishments,” said Andy Fouché, the company’s vice president of communications. “We will cooperate in any law enforcement investigation related to this indictment.” Reprogramming shufflers is not a new trick. In 2023, hackers at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas presented research showing how to hack a Deckmate shuffler and use it to cheat.The human elementThe rigged shuffler machines would transmit information about the players’ hands to an off-site “operator,” according to prosecutors.The computer program showing information transmitted by the rigged shuffling machine in an image from defendant Shane Hennen’s iCloud account. U.S. Justice DepartmentThe operator would then communicate the information to someone else at the table, dubbed the “quarterback.” The victim was known as the “fish.” Here, the high-tech gadgets met the low-tech of a card game.The quarterback might touch the $1,000 poker chip or tap his chin or touch his black chips to indicate who at the table had the best hand.Text messages obtained by prosecutors also appear to show defendants concerned that a fish would leave the table if he lost too many hands. “Guys please let him win a hand he’s in for 40k in 40 minutes he will leave if he gets no traction,” read one text message released by authorities.But according to Messenger, the consultant, it was not the tech that made the alleged scheme so successful for so long. What set it apart was the level of communication.For example, he said, the card information had to be seamlessly passed from the dealing machines to an off-site operator and back to a person back at the table, all without alerting the fish.“The piece that made this so successful was the coordination, not the technology,” he said.Rob WileRob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.
October 3, 2025
Oct. 2, 2025, 6:10 PM EDTBy Chloe MelasWhen Harvey Weinstein, Luigi Mangione and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere faced hard time, among the first people they called was Craig Rothfeld.Rothfeld is the founder and owner of Inside Outside Ltd., a company that helps clients, including the aforementioned three, navigate the unnerving world of life behind bars.With only about a half-dozen prison consulting firms in the United States, Rothfeld is part of a little-known niche industry spawned around the criminal justice system that caters to big-name and no-name clients, all with the same goal.“I’m advocating for their human rights,” Rothfeld said.Rothfeld said he knows firsthand the misery and anguish prisoners experience because he was once incarcerated himself. He served 18 months after he was indicted for various financial crimes and was released in 2017.He said he started his company later that year to help others get through the challenges he faced. “Somebody needs a CPAP machine. They can’t breathe or sleep without it. How do I arrange for that CPAP machine to be able to be brought into either a federal prison or a state prison with them?” Rothfeld said. Luigi Mangione at his arraignment at Manhattan criminal court on Dec. 23.Curtis Means / Pool via Getty ImagesWhen someone hires him, Rothfeld gives the person a list of do’s and don’ts based on the 40 questions clients most often ask him, he said. “Never sit on somebody else’s bed. … Do not go into their cell unless you’re invited. You do not join a conversation that you’re not a part of,” he said. Rothfeld, whom Weinstein granted permission to talk about his experience behind bars, said Weinstein’s first questions before he was locked up were the same as those of other, nonfamous clients. “How am I going to talk to my family? Where am I going? And where do you think I’m going, and how are we going to deal with all of my medical conditions and medical needs?” Rothfeld said.Weinstein, who has chronic myeloid leukemia, or bone marrow cancer, is serving time at Rikers Island in New York City as he awaits sentencing stemming from a sexual assault conviction in June.One of his attorneys, Jennifer Bonjean, said prison consultants are important advocates for people entering the system. “As lawyers, we depend heavily on them to help our clients adjust to prison in all manner of ways, whether it’s to help resolve a medical concern, assist with a disciplinary issue or to advocate for a placement in a facility,” Bonjean said this week.Craig Rothfeld.NBC NewsArthur Aidala, Weinstein’s longtime criminal defense attorney, said he refers clients to Rothfeld because the “fear of the unknown” is overwhelming.”Preparing to enter prison, and then crossing that threshold, is an experience whose horror is truly indescribable,” Aidala said this week. “For most people, it feels insurmountable.”In the case of Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison in 2019 on sex trafficking and child pornography charges, Rothfeld’s first task was to get him out of solitary confinement, he said. Raniere was confined to solitary in 2022 after he was allegedly assaulted by another inmate.“If you spent 280 days in the SHU [Special Housing Unit] with no explanation whatsoever and you have feces on the floor and the walls, yeah, your human rights are being violated,” he said.One of Raniere’s attorneys, Ronald Sullivan, said navigating the federal Bureau of Prisons requires knowledge of a “byzantine set of regulations, the understanding of which can make a tangible difference in time served.”He said that regulations change frequently and that relationships with prison officials often determine how quickly or slowly requests are granted.Rothfeld said conditions at Rikers Island and the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City are “deplorable.” “Some days you have cold water, and that’s it. Sometimes you don’t get to shower for the week,” he said. “The food is inedible. Quite often, there’s leaks coming from the ceiling. There’s broken lights in cells, there’s mice, there’s cockroaches. It is completely inhumane.”Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court for his retrial as the jury deliberates at Manhattan Criminal Court on June 10 in New York.Michael Nagle / Getty Images fileOfficials at Rikers Island, a jail that is operated by the city of New York, did not respond to a request for comment.The federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, said that it makes every effort to ensure inmates’ physical safety and health and that their treatment is humane. It also said the detention center provides nutritionally adequate meals.Rothfeld said he charges a flat fee for his services but would not provide specifics. He said celebrity clients account for only about 2% of his business. “I don’t cost what an attorney costs. I don’t cost six figures. I don’t cost what a brand-new, fancy sport car costs,” he said. “I work with families to meet them where they’re at.”It is not publicly known whether Sean “Diddy” Combs, the former music mogul who is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, has hired a prison consultant. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 11 years and three months in federal prison after he was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center for over a year. Rothfeld said Combs can expect better conditions in a federal prison than at the detention center.“He’ll be able to go outside,” he said. “There’ll be a yard of access to fresh air. He’ll be able to work out if he wants to work out. The second thing is the nature of his living quarters. In all probability, he will be in a dorm-like setting. Anything is nicer or better, relatively speaking, than the MDC.”Rothfeld speaks alongside Diana Fabi Samson and John Esposito, attorneys for Harvey Weinstein, outside Queens criminal court in New York last year. Julia Nikhinson / APRothfeld said he encourages his clients to become voracious readers. “I always recommend that people read fantasy,” he said. “Speaking from personal experience, I read ‘Game of Thrones’ when I was in prison, and it got me outside of where I was.”For the victims of the crimes his clients have committed, Rothfeld said he is not an arbiter of morality. “It’s not my job to judge; it’s not my job to argue. It’s my job to advocate. And as I tell people, the punishment is prison,” he said. “I believe, no matter who you are, famous or not — most of my clients no one’s ever heard of — you should have humane living conditions. Your civil rights should be honored when you’re incarcerated.”Chloe MelasChloe Melas is an entertainment correspondent for NBC News. Emily Lorsch contributed.
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