Serious Crimes by Mayors

July 15, 2026  Women Get Off Easy for Indecent Behavior with a Minor?

DeRidder, Louisiana: Former mayor Misty Roberts was sentenced to 90 days in jail and registered as a sex offender in June 2026 following a conviction for carnal knowledge and indecent behavior with a minor.

Misty Roberts, a former mayor in Louisiana, has been sentenced to 90 days for raping a 16-year-old boy.  On Tuesday, 44-year-old Roberts was sentenced following her conviction earlier this year of two felonies including carnal knowledge of a juvenile – or statutory rape – and indecent behavior with a juvenile.  Roberts, who was facing up to 17 years in prison, sexually assaulted the underage victim at her home in July 2024. They were drinking alcohol at a pool party. Roberts was mayor of DeRidder, Louisiana, at the time, a position she had held since 2018.

As part of her sentencing, Roberts must register as a sex offender and pay $5,000 in fines, and will have to undergo regular drug screenings, in addition to psychotropic and psychological therapy following her release, KPLC reported. The outlet added that Roberts also received two five-year suspended sentences, to be served concurrently unless she violates parole.

April 16, 2026 Former Gettysburg Mayor Arrested on Child Sex Abuse Charges

Former Gettysburg mayor Chad-Alan Carr arrested in Texas on new child sex abuse charges after fleeing Pennsylvania Chad-Alan Carr, the openly gay founder of Gettysburg Pride and former mayor of Gettysburg, was arrested in Palestine, Texas, on April 8, 2026, by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office in coordination with Pennsylvania authorities. Carr had previously posted bail in Pennsylvania on initial charges but fled to Texas, where he is originally from. The new warrant includes two felony counts of sexual assault, one count of depicting child sex acts on a computer, and two counts of corruption of minors. The charges stem from allegations made by three additional victims who came forward.

Jan 21 2026

Former Madison, Ind mayor pleaded guilty to two felony child exploitation charges

MADISON, Ind. (WAVE) - Former Madison Mayor Timothy Armstrong pleaded guilty to two felony child exploitation charges, avoiding prison time in a plea deal that has left the victim’s father unsatisfied.

Armstrong, who served as the city’s mayor between 2008 and 2011 and was a school resource officer in 2022, changed his plea during a hearing after two years with little case activity. The plea agreement suspends his five-year prison sentence to probation and drops nine of the 11 charges he originally faced.

Victim was 12 when approached at school

The victim was 12 years old when Armstrong approached him at school and began asking sexual questions, according to court records. The boy’s father said Armstrong was “grooming him” and “started asking him about all kinds of different sexual questions, his sexual history.”

The boy reported the inappropriate contact after recognizing it was wrong. Court details describe Armstrong telling the boy it would be funny if the boy sent him a video of a sex act.

Jan 21 2026

Former Dumont Mayor is charged with drugging and raping a teenage boy

Former Dumont Mayor Andrew LaBruno, who is charged with drugging and raping a teenage boy in November, will remain in the Bergen County Jail as prosecutors prepare to turn over additional evidence to his lawyer.

LaBruno, a Jersey City police sergeant, was arrested on November 17, two weeks after he lost a race for State Assembly in the 39th district.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Superior Court Judge Gary Wilcox denied bail to LaBruno, agreeing that he posed a risk to the community and the victim and might obstruct the ongoing criminal investigation – and that he identified himself as an on-duty police officer to police.

Prosecutors allege that LaBruno sprayed an unknown substance into his hand and placed it over the mouth of a teenage boy, causing the incapacitated victim to become dizzy, and then forced him to perform fellatio on him.  He’s accused of committing an act of sexual penetration through the use of coercion and without consent, and knowingly engaging in sexual conduct with a child.

He was charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault-force/coercion, and endangering-sexual conduct with a child.

Jan 17, 2026

State lawsuit claims New Jersey town's former mayor directed police to keep minorities out

CLARK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey town whose former mayor was once heard denigrating Black people on secret recordings made by a whistleblower is now facing a state lawsuit that claims he and local police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community.

 A New Jersey town whose former mayor was once heard denigrating Black people on secret recordings made by a whistleblower is now facing a state lawsuit that claims he and local police officials directed officers to keep minorities out of the community.

The complaint, filed by state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the office's Division on Civil Rights, names former Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, suspended town police chief Pedro Matos and the current police director Patrick Grady as defendants. It claims the town's leaders “systematically discriminated against and harassed Black and other non-white motorists.”

Bonaccorso, a Republican, was the town's mayor for about 25 years before he resigned in January 2025, just days after starting his seventh term in office. He had been easily reelected in November 2024 despite allegations of corruption. He left office after pleading guilty to using township resources to benefit his private landscaping business and forging signatures on permit applications for work his company performed in the area.

Bonaccorso did not respond to a voicemail message left Friday. When asked about the suit by NJ.com, he texted them back a two-word response, using an expletive to describe the suit.

In 2020, a police officer told officials he had secretly recorded Bonaccorso, Matos and another police official using racial slurs while referring to Blacks. The town agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the matter out of court, but the allegations later became public.

Clark Mayor Angel Albanese, a Republican who succeeded Bonaccorso, called the state's lawsuit “frivolous” and accused Platkin of “playing politics” as his term as attorney general comes to an end. Charles Sciarra, an attorney for Matos, voiced similar views while noting the timing of the suit.

Matos has been on paid leave since the Union County Prosecutor's Office seized control of the police department in July 2020. He has sued Clark to try to block the town from firing him, and those disciplinary proceedings remain active. The prosecutor's oversight ended last March.

The lawsuit claims the town and its police leadership instituted a variety of discriminatory policing practices at the behest of Bonaccorso. Clark is a New York suburb, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) south of Manhattan.

According to an analysis cited by the attorney general's office, Black people were stopped 3.7 times more often than white people in Clark between 2015 and 2020, and Hispanic people were stopped 2.2 times more often than white people.

While some of these racial disparities persisted to some extent even after the prosecutor's oversight began, the data from 2020 to 2024 revealed some notable changes and improvements in policing practices that coincided with the reduction of some of these racial disparities, the attorney general's office said.

 Jan 17, 2026

RIVERVIEW, Mo. (KSDK/CNN NEWSOURCE/WKRC) - The mayor of Riverview has been arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes following a monthslong investigation by St. Louis County police.

Michael Cornell Jr. is accused of sexually assaulting or harassing at least two teenagers and two adults over the past decade, authorities said. He was arrested this week and is being held on a $1 million cash-only bond.   As First Alert 4 news reported, Riverview mayor Mike Cornell Jr. has been charged with four counts of second-degree statutory sodomy, three counts of first-degree sodomy or attempted sodomy, one count of first-degree harassment, and one count of possession of child pornography. There were four victims involved in these incidents, including two minors under the age of 17. 

Lt. Col. Jerry Lohr of the St. Louis County Police Department described Cornell’s alleged conduct as “predatory,” adding that investigators believe there may be additional victims.

The investigation began in December after a victim reported the alleged crimes to another law enforcement agency, which referred the case to St. Louis County police. Court records detail allegations of sexual assault and harassment dating back to 2016, with the most recent incident reported in December 2023.

Just last month, Cornell Jr. alleged without evidence that pro-KKK and anti-Semitic graffiti had been appearing throughout Riverview.

How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

 

How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration.

Joseph H. Thompson, center, the federal prosecutor overseeing the cases, at the U.S. District Courthouse in Minneapolis in September.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York Times

 

By Ernesto Londoño

Published Nov. 29, 2025Updated Jan. 7, 2026

The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.  Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.  At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.

Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.  Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic, when Americans stole tens of billions through

Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans, and fraud has turned into a potent political issue in a competitive campaign season. Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch, providing Republicans, who hope to take back the governor’s office in 2026, with a powerful line of attack.

In recent days, President Trump has weighed in, calling Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and saying that Somali perpetrators should be sent “back to where they came from.”

Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.

Debate over the fraud has opened new rifts between the state’s Somali community and other Minnesotans, and has left some Somali Americans saying they are unfairly facing a new layer of suspicion against all of them, rather than the small group accused of fraud. Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota. Governor Walz, who has instituted new fraud-prevention safeguards, defended his administration’s actions.

The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes. That system helped create an environment that drew immigrants to the state over many decades, including tens of thousands of Somali refugees after their country descended into civil war in the 1990s.

“No one will support these programs if they continue to be riddled with fraud,” Joseph H. Thompson, the federal prosecutor who has overseen the fraud cases said in an interview. “We’re losing our way of life in Minnesota in a very real way.”

Minneapolis is home to one of the largest Somali-American communities in the United States.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York Times

The first public sign of a major problem in the state’s social services system came in 2022, when federal prosecutors began charging defendants in connection to a program aimed at feeding hungry children. Merrick B. Garland, attorney general during the Biden administration, called it the country’s largest pandemic relief fraud scheme.  The prosecutors focused on a Minneapolis nonprofit organization called Feeding Our Future, which became a partner to dozens of local businesses that enrolled as feeding sites. State agencies reimbursed the group and its partners for invoices claiming to have fed tens of thousands of children. In reality, federal prosecutors said, most of the meals were nonexistent, and business owners spent the funds on luxury cars, houses and even real estate projects abroad.

Behind the scenes, as federal investigators sifted through bank records and interviewed witnesses, they said they realized that the meals fraud was not an isolated incident. In September, prosecutors charged nine people in two new plots tied to public funds meant for those in need.  In one case, hundreds of providers were reimbursed for assistance they claimed to have provided to people at risk for homelessness, though federal authorities said services weren’t provided.  The program’s annual cost ballooned to more than $104 million last year, the authorities said, from a budgeted projection of $2.6 million when it began in 2020. Two of eight people charged in the scenario have pleaded guilty; six others have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

In another program, aimed to provide therapy for autistic children, prosecutors said providers recruited children in Minneapolis’s Somali community, falsely certifying them as qualifying for autism treatment and paying their parents kickbacks for their cooperation.  Prosecutors have so far charged one provider, Asha Farhan Hassan, 29, with wire fraud. They say she and business partners stole $14 million.  Ryan Pacyga, Ms. Hassan’s lawyer, said his client had entered the social services field with good intentions, but eventually began to submit fraudulent invoices. He said she intends to plead guilty.  Ms. Hassan is of Somali ancestry, as are all but eight of the 86 people charged in the meals, housing and autism therapy fraud cases, according to prosecutors. A vast majority are American citizens, by birth or naturalization.

Mr. Pacyga, who also has represented other defendants in the fraud cases, said that some involved became convinced that state agencies were tolerating, if not tacitly allowing, the fraud.  “No one was doing anything about the red flags,” he said. “It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it.”

‘A Core Voting Bloc’

Whiteboards filled with cases and charges line the walls inside a room used by investigators to track fraud.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York Times

Red flags in the meals program surfaced in the early months of the pandemic, but the money kept flowing.

In 2020, Minnesota Department of Education officials who administered the program became overwhelmed by the number of applicants seeking to register new feeding sites and began raising questions about the plausibility of some invoices.

Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit group that was the largest provider in the pandemic program, responded with a warning. In an email, the group told the state agency that failing to promptly approve new applicants from “minority-owned businesses” would result in a lawsuit featuring accusations of racism that would be “sprawled across the news.”

Feeding Our Future later sued the agency, which continued reimbursing claims and approving new sites in the months that followed.  A report by Minnesota’s nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor about the lapses that enabled the meals fraud later found that the threat of litigation and of negative press affected how state officials used their regulatory power.

Kayseh Magan, a Somali American who formerly worked as a fraud investigator for the Minnesota attorney general’s office, said elected officials in the state — and particularly those who were part of the state’s Democratic-led administration — were reluctant to take more assertive action in response to allegations in the Somali community.

“There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash among the Somali community, which is a core voting bloc” for Democrats, said Mr. Magan, who is among the few prominent figures in the Somali community to speak about the fraud.  As a trial in the meals fraud case was coming to a close last summer, an attempt to bribe a juror included an explicit insinuation about racism, prosecutors said. Several defendants in the trial were found to have arranged to send a bag containing $120,000 to a juror along with a note that read, “Why, why, why is it always people of color and immigrants prosecuted for the fault of other people?”

Mr. Thompson, a career prosecutor who served as interim U.S. attorney for several months this year, and who declined to discuss his own political preferences, said he believed that race sensitivities had played a major role in the rise of fraud. As pandemic assistance was disbursed, the state was also reeling from the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, he said.  “This was a huge part of the problem,” Mr. Thompson said during an interview in the summer. “Allegations of racism can be a reputation or career killer.”

Mr. Walz, Minnesota’s second-term governor who gained national attention last year as Kamala Harris’s running mate in a White House bid, said this week that claims of racism did not hinder his administration’s response to fraud.  Mr. Walz has said that his administration may have erred on the side of generosity during the pandemic as the state pushed out large sums of money quickly, seeking to keep Minnesotans housed, fed and healthy.  “The programs are set up to move the money to people,” Mr. Walz said in an interview. “The programs are set up to improve people’s lives, and in many cases, the criminals find the loopholes.”

Mr. Walz, who is seeking a third term next year, has created a new task force to pursue fraud cases; made it easier for state agencies to share information with one another; and announced plans for new technology, including artificial intelligence tools, to spot suspicious billing practices.  “The message here in Minnesota,” Mr. Walz said, “is if you commit a crime, if you commit fraud against public dollars, you are going to go to prison.”

Fraud has already become a central issue in a competitive governor’s race. Lisa Demuth, a Republican and current Minnesota House speaker, accused the governor of raising taxes while letting “fraud run wild” in a video announcing her bid to replace Mr. Walz.  In recent months Mr. Walz’s administration began shutting down the housing program altogether, acknowledging that it was riddled with fraud. Last month the state hired an independent auditor to review claims for 14 other Medicaid-funded programs that the state said were at high risk of fraud.  “Greedy people and businesses have learned how to exploit our programs,” James Clark, the inspector general at the Department of Human Services, told

Ahmed Samatar, a professor at Macalester College, said a reckoning over the fraud and its consequences for Minnesota was overdue.Credit...Ben Brewer for The New York Times

Years after the fraud cases first came to light, the issue has come under a harsh national spotlight amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Mr. Trump last week denounced the Minnesota fraud cases on social media and simultaneously announced an end to a temporary legal status that allows several hundred Somali immigrants to live and work in the United States.  His comments followed a report this month in the Manhattan Institute’s publication, City Journal, in which Ryan Thorpe, a reporter, and Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, said that money from Minnesota’s fraud was funding Al Shabab, a terrorist organization in Somalia. That claim emerged in 2018, but there has been no solid evidence to substantiate it, and none of the federal fraud cases have featured a link to terrorism.

Over the last few days, in response to the shooting of National Guard members in Washington, Mr. Trump has again spoken of Somalis in Minnesota, saying they were “ripping off our country.”  In Minnesota, Mr. Trump’s remarks deeply unsettled Somalis.  Dozens came to a Somali mall in Minneapolis over the weekend for a potluck and interfaith gathering, where faith leaders decried Mr. Trump's statements. And in a news conference on Monday, Democratic elected officials pointed to contributions Somali leaders have made to Minnesota’s political, economic and cultural spheres. Several Somali Americans serve in the State Legislature and other offices, while others have been honored for their entrepreneurship.  “We do not blame the lawlessness of an individual on a whole community,” Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who was born in Somalia and whose district includes Minneapolis, told reporters.

Somali residents were initially concentrated in a neighborhood near downtown Minneapolis with high-rises and Somali-run restaurants and shops, but over the years many have moved to the suburbs and elsewhere in the state.  Their experiences have been challenging at times as many in the community contended with poverty, unemployment and language barriers. In recent years, some Somali Americans say the community has been broadly blamed over crime and links to terrorist groups. Few episodes have left fissures as deep as the fraud scandal.

Ahmed Samatar, a professor at Macalester College who is a leading expert in Somali studies, said a reckoning over the fraud and its consequences for Minnesota was overdue.  “American society and the denizens of the state of Minnesota have been extremely good to Somalis,” said Dr. Samatar, who is Somali American.  Dr. Samatar said that Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.  Minnesota, he said, proved susceptible to rampant fraud because it is “so tolerant, so open and so geared toward keeping an eye on the weak.”

Others in the community have criticized steps state agencies have taken to tighten oversight of programs. The Minnesota Somali Community Center, a nonprofit organization that provides resources to Somalis, recently issued a statement saying that many social services providers were now at risk of closure and feeling “criminalized and intentionally targeted.”  Still, other Somali Americans who have nothing to do with social service agencies said they had come to feel under siege amid all the fraud allegations and political accusations.  “The actions of a small group have made it easier for people already inclined to reject us to double down,” said Abdi Mohamed, a filmmaker in Minneapolis. “The broader Somali community — hardworking, family-oriented, deeply committed to Minnesota — is left carrying that burden.”

 

How Do We Take Care of Those Who Can't and Let Those Who Can Take Care of Themselves

 

July 14, 2026

Yes. We Old People Are a Drain -- And in Denmark/Norway Some Young Migrants Are

 

Net fiscal impact per household in Norway by country of origin. The numbers are not as good as those from Denmark or the Netherlands. They only include the cost of fiscal transfers, not the cost of healthcare, public schools and so on. So in fact, every group is significantly more fiscally costly than what is show here.

But we can still recognize the pattern from Denmark and Netherlands: Immigrants from Europe are fiscally positive, and immigrants from Muslim countries are fiscally negative.

Higher Infant Mortality in the US

 WHY IS INFANT MORTALITY HIGHER IN THE US THAN IN EUROPE? 

Alice Chen Emily Oster Heidi Williams 

Working Paper 20525    http://www.nber.org/papers/w20525 

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 September 2014

My Summary:

Comparison of infant mortality for the US, Austria, and Finland

1.  Neonatal

If the sample is separated into low weight/ very, very premature babies and normal weight babies, then the neonatal (within one month of delivery) infant mortality rate for the US is as good or better than the other countries.

But a larger fraction of infants in the US are low weight/premature and their mortality rate for these babies is higher for all three countries.  So the overall US mortality rate is higher.  

2.  Postnatal

Now separate the sample into "advantaged" and not advantaged but not including low birth weight, very, very premature or multiple births)  In the US, advantaged is defined as  college educated, married, white or Asian non immigrant (nonimmigrant for Austria). 

The advantaged do at least as well in the US as in Austria and Finland. 

But the disadvantaged (excluding low birth weight , very, very premature babies, and multiple births) in the US have higher infant mortality in all months 1 through 12 than other countries.  Some is from more accidents and deliberate harm.  

3.  There are also differences across regions of the US -- much more for postnatal than neonatal.  North east has lowest rate and Pacific the highes.  

Percent Foreign Born by European Country

 

2008 Obama, B. Clinton & Others on Undocumented/Illegals (Promise of The Border Security that We Need)

1993 Harry Reid 

Obama in 2006

 Obama in Presidential Debate

This administration, the Bush Administration, has done nothing to control the problem that we have.  We have had 5 million undocumented workers come over the borders  since George Bush took office.  It has become an extraordinary problem.  And the reason the American people are concerned is that they are seeing their own economic position slip away.  And often times employers are exploiting these undocumented workers.  They are not paying the minimum wage, they are not observing worker safety laws.  So what we have to do is create a comprehensive solution to the problem.  Now I’ve already stated that as President I will make sure that we finally have the kind of border security that we need.  That’s step number 1.  Step number 2 is to take on employers.  Right now an employer has more of a chance of getting hit by lightening than be prosecuted for hiring an undocumented worker.  That has to change.  They have to be held accountable.  And when we do those things I believe that we can take the undocumented workers, the illegal aliens, who are here, get them out of the shadows, make sure that they are subject to a stiff penalty, make sure that they are learning English, make sure that they go to the back of the line so they are not getting an advantage over people who came here legally.  And if we do all of this we can be a nation of laws and immigrants.

Obama in a presidential debate in 2008

CLINTON 2008: “So, I think we got to have tough conditions. Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they’ve committed a crime, deport them. No questions asked, they’re gone. If they — (applause) — if they’ve been working and are law-abiding, we should say here are the conditions for you staying. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes and you have to try to learn English and you have to wait in line. (cheers and applause)”

Bill Clinton and Srate of the Union Address:  1995 State of Union Address

Clinton discussed the public's frustration with illegal immigration and detailed his administration's approach to increasing enforcement. 

• Border security: He noted the hiring of a record number of new Border Patrol guards.
• Cracking down on illegal hiring: The administration focused on stricter enforcement of laws against employers who hire undocumented workers.
• Deporting criminal aliens: Clinton highlighted efforts to increase the deportation of undocumented immigrants who committed crimes.
• Restricting benefits: He mentioned barring welfare benefits for undocumented immigrants. 

Clinton's direct quote: 

"All Americans... are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders."

1996 State of the Union

In 1996, Clinton again addressed immigration, stating, "We are still a nation of immigrants... But we are also a nation of laws". He mentioned increased border controls and an executive order denying federal contracts to businesses employing undocumented immigrants. 

Harry Reid in 1993 and then reversal in 2006

• In August 1993, then-Representative (later Senator) Reid introduced a bill proposing to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their mothers were not American citizens or lawful permanent residents.
• At the time, Reid argued that no country should offer what he characterized as a "reward for being an illegal immigrant". [1, 2, 3]

The Reversal

• Reid later reversed his stance, expressing deep regret for the 1993 bill.
• In a 2006 speech on the Senate floor, he described introducing the legislation as the "low point" of his governmental career, citing the influence of his wife (whose father was an immigrant) and his realization that the proposal was short-sighted.

Protecting Your Self from Being Controlled.

 

Only Whites Conqueor?

 https://x.com/KyllandraFTW/status/2076215325327028290

Comancheria used to be called Apacheria, because the Apaches lived there until the Comanches conquered it and kicked them south

Defense Spending by European Countries