Airline Employee Stalked Passenger at San Diego Airport and Onboard Flight: Lawsuit
Unwanted emails or text messages are usually just a bother. But for one local woman traveling at San Diego’s International Airport, a series of mysterious text messages made her fear for her safety and caused her lasting emotional distress.
Ashley Barno was waiting to board her flight last April at the San Diego International Airport.
Looking at her phone, she saw the first of many text messages from an unknown sender.
“Hey, Ashley! How are you?” read the first text. “I’m good, thank you!” Ashley politely replied. “Sorry,” she added, “I’m not sure who this is.”
Barno didn’t recognize the phone number on those texts and the messages that followed made her increasingly uncomfortable. “BTW I must tell you that you are gorgeous,” wrote the unknown admirer.
“The whole time I kept asking him, ‘Who are you? How do you know who I am? How’d you get my info?’,” Barno told NBC 7 in an exclusive interview.
Then, another unwelcomed text: “You are looking very gorgeous in that gray top today.” That message prompted Barno to look for a familiar face in the American Airlines boarding area in Terminal 2. That’s when the sender identified himself as “Ahmad” and told Barno he worked for the airline.
The unwanted messages continued after Barno boarded her flight to Chicago.
Then, a text that really unnerved her. “I am on board now. Are you going to Chicago too??”
At the least, she says everyone should only use luggage tags that have a flap that covers their personal information.
And, that is the big take away? Hide your tag? It is on you to protect yourself from creeps? How about the airline doing a better job hiring trustworthy employees who aren’t hanging onto cultural norms from whatever country “Ahmad” is from.
I wonder do major airlines have training programs for ‘new American’ employees to teach them how to behave on the job?
Look around and see that this story is getting national media attention.
Editor:As is so often the case, I’ve been busy at Refugee Resettlement Watch as Republican governors are caving to the Open Borders Left and asking the President for MORE refugees this year. See RRW from time to time if you aren’t already.
One of my favorite scams earlier at RRW,and now at ‘Frauds and Crooks,’is SNAP scam! That is when small stores and gas stations (most often owned by ‘new Americans’) traffic in food stamps. I’ve noticed fewer of them lately. I don’t know if that is because the most egregious cases have already been busted or whether the feds have slowed their investigations.
However, this isn’t about trafficking fraud, but about the couple collecting food stamp benefits while owning several gas stations. There may also be some Medicaid fraud mixed in, but that isn’t fully explained.
I hope the feds investigated their gas stations to ascertain if they also might be trafficking in food stamps!
BTW, I’ve traveled often through this part of South Jersey and I can say there are many, many foreign-owned and operated convenience stores and gas stations. Why is that?
Mustafa and Rahime Ozturk in court on Monday with their Turkish interpreter that you, the taxpayers, likely paid for as required by a Bill Clinton Executive Order that was never rescinded. I wish someone would do an analysis of what these interpreters are costing county and state taxpayers!
Vineland couple in food stamp case say they don’t have to pay back money
BRIDGETON – A Vineland couple charged with taking thousands of dollars in an alleged food stamp scam are rejecting a plea deal, claiming a recent bankruptcy means they don’t have to pay back the money.
The couple, Mustafa Ozturk, 35, and Rahime Ozturk, 38, fraudulently received $26,128 in food stamps over several years while concealing that they owned gas stations in two states from the Cumberland County Division of Social Services, court records show.
They both appeared in Cumberland County Superior Court on Monday.
The couple, who have separate attorneys, were arraigned in November on a 16-count indictment alleging theft, conspiracy, and falsifying records.
At Monday’s hearing before Judge Robert Malestein, county Assistant Prosecutor Shari-Ann Sasu said the state has offered the couple plea deals that would recommend probation instead of prison.
However, she said, the defendants would be required to pay back the county and the Ozturks are refusing.
Send them to jail then!
The Ozturks filed in federal Bankruptcy Court in October 2018 for Chapter 13 protection. The Division of Social Services already had completed its investigation by that time.
The division contacted the Prosecutor’s Office in February 2018 to report suspected Medicaid fraud, according to court records.
[….]
“I believe Mr. Ozturk’s of the position that, if he’s in bankruptcy, he shouldn’t have to pay anything back,” Sasu said. “So, the sticking point really is the money and restitution. I’m thinking a restitution hearing is coming at some point.”
This is a doozy of a ‘diversity is beautiful’ alert involving a ‘new American.’
Japanese national, Rie Hachiyanagi, 48, in custody for attempted murder.
Stories like this rarely show up in the national news, but this story from the elite Mt. Holyoke College is sure getting a lot of attention in Massachusetts.
Yikes!
The former exchange student from Japan who “decided to stay” in the US and ultimately became an art professor was supposedly in love with a fellow female professor (60) who had never had any idea, or had never encouraged, any romantic relationship.
Mount Holyoke professor accused of attacking colleague over unrequited love
LEVERETT, Mass. — A Mount Holyoke art professor is accused of going to a fellow professor’s home over Christmas break and attacking the woman with a rock, a fireplace poker and garden shears out of unrequited love, according to court documents.
Rie Hachiyanagi, 48, of South Hadley, is charged with armed assault to murder a person older than 60, three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of mayhem and one count of armed assault in a dwelling. According to Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan’s office, Hachiyanagi was arraigned on the charges Friday.
The victim, whose name has been redacted from police reports to protect her identity, is expected to survive, but she suffered severe injuries, Sullivan said in a news release.
The woman is not a member of the art faculty and it was not clear how well she and Hachiyanagi know one another, though the victim told investigators she’d known Hachiyanagi since August 2005.
The victim told state troopers she and Hachiyanagi have never been romantically involvedand that Hachiyanagi was in a long-term relationship with a man, according to court documents.
Both professors were on winter break when the attack took place, according to a spokeswoman for Mount Holyoke, a women’s college about 12 miles north of Springfield in South Hadley. Christian Feuerstein told the Boston Globe that Hachiyanagi has been placed on administrative leave.
Mount Holyoke President Sonya Stephens spoke with students/faculty and didn’t name either professor. From the colleges website: “Mount Holyoke sustains an increasingly diverse, global, and inclusive community of students, faculty, and staff in an environment of mutual respect in which all thrive and contribute to the flourishing of others.”
“This individual … is not permitted on our campus pending further review of the incident,” Feuerstein said in a statement. “We will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies in support of their ongoing investigations.”
Mount Holyoke President Sonya Stephens also addressed the incident with students and faculty, without divulging either professor’s name, Friday, the same day Hachiyanagi was arraigned.
[…..]
The newspaper reported that Hachiyanagi, a native of Japan, has been a member of the school’s faculty since 2004. A professor in art, art history and Asian studies over the years, she is currently chair of the college’s Art Studio, or art department.
A criminal complaint filed by Massachusetts State Trooper Geraldine Bresnahan indicates that police were called to the victim’s home in Leverett, located about 16 miles north of campus, just after midnight Christmas Eve. Hachiyanagi was the person who called 911.
The responding officers arrived to find both Hachiyanagi and the victim lying on the floor of the home’s foyer. Though Hachiyanagi was uninjured, the other woman was “barely breathing, semi-conscious and with a head injury,” Bresnahan’s statement reads.
Hachiyanagi told the officers she had arrived for previously agreed upon plans with the victim to find her beaten and lying in a pool of blood. The officers searched the house, multiple outbuildings and the property for an assailant, with no results, the complaint says.
At that point, the victim, who was able to speak, told the troopers she had lost her glasses in the attack and did not know the gender or anything else about the person who had attacked her.
Her statements would change drastically when she was at the hospital — and away from Hachiyanagi, according to court documents.
Find out what happened next! It is an incredible tale! Go here, and you can see the arrest report and criminal complaint as well.
What I want to know is this: Do foreign exchange students come here and decide to stay for decades?
Hachiyanagi is a renowned artist known for incorporating handmade paper in her work, according to Mount Holyoke. A 2017 blurb on the college’s website and a 2012 article in the Globe both reported she first came to the United States in 1988 as a high school exchange student.
She decided to become an artist after having to use sketching to communicate in the Kansas community in which she was placed. According to the 2012 Globe story, she was also asked to paint a homecoming mural at the high school.
After deciding on her 18th birthday to study art, she never returned to live in Japan, the Globe reported.
So much for giving a better life to those who supposedly helped our military in one of our foreign entanglements—this time the Hmong from the Vietnam era.
As I said yesterday at RRW, we are bringing in Afghans and Iraqis by the tens of thousands as a reward for doing something for our military (or even for non-profit groups) with no guarantee that they will benefit America.
These gangs of Hmong in California are a case in point.
7 charged in Central California party shooting that killed 4
FRESNO — Seven gang members were charged Thursday in state and federal court in the shooting deaths of four men at a backyard party in California, prosecutors said.
Some of the great agricultural workers refugee ‘sponsors’ placed in California!
The victims were killed Nov. 17 when gunmen entered the yard of a Fresno home through an unlocked gate and used semiautomatic weapons to open fire on people watching a Sunday night football game. Four men were killed and six other people were wounded.
Police said the suspects all acknowledge being members of the Mongolian Boys Society and that the shooting was intended as retaliation for the death of one of their gang members.
However, investigators do not believe any of the victims were members of a rival gang and say they were mistakenly targeted. [Another news report says one of those targeted belonged to the Asian Crips gang.—ed]
[….]
They could face life in prison if convicted of the charges. District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp said prosecutors were considering whether to pursue the death penalty.
[….]
All the victims were of Hmong descent and the shooting rattled the central California city, home of the second-largest Hmong community in the U.S.
Hmong, an ethnic minority group from East and Southeast Asia, fought on the side of the U.S. in the Vietnam War. After the war, the U.S. moved them to places in Minnesota, California and Wisconsin.
California, Hmong settled in Fresno and the Central Valley, where sponsors hoped they could find work given their agricultural background.
Another bunch of New Americans bringing us gangs and violence, as well as a big bill for the cost of trials and possible lifelong incarceration.
Hey, the next time you see one of those gushing economic studies put out by the likes of Bloomberg’s New American Economy or Welcoming America, see if they have factored in the cost to the criminal justice system!
End note:As I saidhere a few days ago,the Left loves its warm and fuzzy emotional stories about how ‘new Americans’ bring us the joys of diversity while benefiting our economy, but my job is to balance their fluff with ‘stories’ that demonstrate another side of their ‘nation of immigrants’ meme.
“[A]fter arriving in the United States from Cuba on a raft seeking refuge and a better life…they proceeded to build a vast empire of fraud.”
I could not find a photo of the Cuban crooks.
Here is the news directly from the US Justice Department, and I must say this is one of the better press releases I’ve seen from the feds especially for its mention of the fact that the Cuban crooks were refugees who then took advantage of us. (Immigration history is rarely mentioned.)
(Thanks to one of my many readers who share tips with me.)
We gave them an opportunity for a good life, they ripped us off and now we must pay for their incarceration!
Husband and Wife Sentenced to Prison for Roles in $38 Million Health Care Fraud and Wire Fraud Scheme
Rodolfo Pichardo, 71, of Hialeah, Florida was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for masterminding a $38 million health care fraud and wire fraud scheme. His wife Marta Pichardo, 66, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for her role in the scheme.
[….]
Rodolfo Pichardo and Marta Pichardo previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud. On December 4, 2019, Rodolfo Pichardo, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz to 188 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay $33,841,576 in restitution. Today, Marta Pichardo was sentenced by Judge Ruiz to 96 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. She was ordered to pay $10,482,178 in restitution.
According to court documents, after arriving in the United States from Cuba on a raft seeking refuge and a better life, the Rodolfo Pichardo and his wife Marta Pichardo settled in Miami-Dade County, Florida where they proceeded to build a vast empire of fraud, consisting of at least six fraudulent home health agencies, three fraudulent therapy staffing companies, and two fraudulent pharmacies. Each of these entities purportedly provided home health services, therapy services, and prescription drugs, respectively, to qualified Medicare beneficiaries, though in fact and as both Rodolfo and Marta Pichardo knew, they did not.
From May 2010 through September 2016, the Pichardos and their co-conspirators used this empire to submit more than $38 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, for which the trust-based program then paid out more than $33 million.
Fueled their lavish lifestyle with your money!
The Pichardos then used this money to purchase multiple properties, high-end vehicles, expensive jewelry, plane tickets, vacations, cosmetic procedures, and more, both for themselves and their family members.
As part of the scheme, Rodolfo Pichardo offered and paid kickbacks, both by cash and by check, to numerous patient recruiters, in exchange for the referral of Medicare beneficiaries to home health agencies that he owned. The conspirators also offered and paid cash kickbacks to owners and operators of multiple Miami-Dade medical clinics, in return for acquiring medically unnecessary home health prescriptions for the recruited Medicare beneficiaries. These prescriptions were then used by the Pichardos’ various home health agencies and pharmacies to bill Medicare for purported services and pharmaceutical drugs that were provided to allegedly qualified Medicare beneficiaries
During the long-running scheme, the Pichardos took several calculated steps to conceal the fraud and avoid detection, including using nominee owners, changing names and locations of their fraudulent entities, and creating shell companies to conceal the receipt of the fraud proceeds, hide assets and transactions, and divert proceeds for both personal use and to further the fraud.
So much for Michael Bloomberg’s New American Economybuilt on immigrant entrepreneurs.
As I have said before, the President should work some of the fantastic fraud busts his Justice Department is exposing into each rally he attends. He could direct his staff to find one or two relevant to whatever state he is visiting.
I think Florida fraudsters might outnumber Michigan schemers here at ‘Frauds and Crooks’, but I’ll check my archives tomorrow on this blogs first anniversary!
Don’t forget to check in at Refugee Resettlement Watch which has been taking most of my attention in recent weeks!
Rodolfo Pichardo, 71, of Hialeah, Florida was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for masterminding a $38 million health care fraud and wire fraud scheme. His wife Marta Pichardo, 66, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for her role in the scheme.