Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 07.20.23

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Man blackmails teens into sending pornographic photos that he in turn sells. Live bullet found hidden on identity thief.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. Andrew Venegas, 23, befriends high school girls and college women over Snapchat, then hacks their accounts. He steals nude photos, then blackmails the girls into sending more porn photos and videos. Venegas sells the photos via, quote, Telegram, advertising them specifically as underage blackmail porn. What a creep. Couldn't agree more, Nancy.

The FBI began their investigation with an account under the name Starkey LOL on a website made to share explicit images of women. They later tied that username back to Venegas by tracing cryptocurrency payments. Venegas had uploaded nearly 1,000 images and videos of often underage women and advertised them for sale in packages. FBI agents posed as buyers on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram just before a raid of Venegas' home. When the messages appeared on his phone, it proved Venegas was responsible for the blackmail.

Venegas now charged with sexploitation of children. Michael Brennan, 24, charges three grand to a stolen credit card to reserve a 17-day stay at a Florida hotel. Cops track him to his room and find multiple driver's licenses, social security cards, credit cards under all sorts of different names, and arrest him for identity fraud. While Brennan's booked into jail, he's warned contraband on his person would get additional charges. But when he searched, cops discover a live bullet hidden on his body.

Brennan now charged with contraband. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. We begin in Hawaii as the murder trial gets underway for a man charged in the shooting death of an acupuncturist having an affair with his wife. A defense attorney tells jurors that his client

wasn't the only person with a motive to kill. For more, we turn to Sidney Sumner with Crime Online. Since his arrest on Valentine's Day of last year, Eric Thompson has been living under house arrest in a posh area of Honolulu. According to police, Thompson shot his wife's acupuncturist, John Tokuhara, after learning about their relationship through Instagram messages. Our friends with the Honolulu Star Advisor are reporting that Thompson's defense attorney claims that Tokuhara had a track record of cheating, including with women who had families. The newspaper quotes attorney David Hayakawa as stating that the jilted ladies Tokuhara ghosted would have had the same motive. Hayakawa claims that police disregarded additional clues regarding potential suspects, pointing out that Tokuhara was a gambler and that

almost $4,000 in cash was discovered in his office next to his body. A prosecutor quoted by KHON-TV contends Thompson killed Tokuhara because he had damaged the couple's image of a perfect life. Surveillance video shows Thompson parking close to Tokuhara's office and entering while wearing a hat and sunglasses. Police say the hat dropped to the ground as Thompson was leaving, and DNA tests revealed that it was most likely worn by Thompson. The trial continues, and the judge expects it to wrap up by the end of the month. Now to Indiana, as an inmate accused of murdering an Indianapolis

sheriff's deputy during an attempted escape while being transported in a van has been charged with murder. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against the man. According to authorities, 34-year-old Orlando Mitchell choked 61-year-old Deputy John Derm with his handcuff chain while the prisoner was being returned to the Criminal Justice Center in Indianapolis after a hospital visit. Mitchell was formally charged with two counts of murder, as well as one count each of robbery, causing serious bodily harm and escape. Mitchell was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Crystal Walton, at the time of Durham's killing. He has been behind bars in that murder since his arrest in September 2022. Lobbyist Matt Borges has appealed a five-year

sentence he received in the $60 million bribery conspiracy that also resulted in the conviction of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. With details, Crime Online, Sidney Sumner. It was in March that a jury found 51-year-old Borges and Householder both guilty of racketeering. The plan, according to the authorities, involved making covert payments to Akron-based utility corporation First Energy in order to maintain householders' control when his allies' seats in the legislature passed legislation that included a $1.3 billion bailout for two outdated nuclear plants owned by a First Energy affiliate and then thwart attempts to overturn the new law. Prosecutors contend that Borges' main role in the scheme was to deny

Ohioans the chance to overturn what he recognized to be dishonest legislation and had referred to as the outcome of a, quote, unholy alliance. Jurors were shown proof that he received a budget of $25,000, which he laundered through his own bank accounts to use in bribing a political operative for confidential, real-time information on the referendum campaign against House Bill 6. After Borges expressed regret at his sentencing hearing and appealed for leniency, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black sentenced him to the low end of the five-to-eight-year range suggested by federal prosecutors. Black's decision regarding Borges came one day after the judge

handed 64-year-old Householder the maximum legal penalty of 20 years in prison and one year of probation. Householder has also appealed. Yolonne Miller, a 38-year-old autistic woman, works in the flower department at a Sedona, Arizona grocery store. Just before her shift June 19, Yolonne packs items from her apartment telling her roommate she's heading to Jerome, Arizona about an hour away. Miller then misses work and a doctor's appointment, never returns home. Her car found abandoned near a local hiking trail. Family members say she could never have hiked due to health issues. Yolonne Miller, now missing over a year.

If you have info on Yolonne Miller, please contact Sedona PD at 929-282-3100. For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.