Uncle John’s True Crime

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  OUTCOME: The Demarees are suing Walmart for not displaying its “unsuitable print policy.” They’re also suing the state of Arizona, who they claim slandered them by telling their friends and co-workers that the couple were “child pornographers.” In all, the family is seeking $8.4 million for “emotional stress, headaches, nightmares, shock to their nervous system, grief, and depression.”

  THE ACCUSED: Francis Evelyn, 58, a custodian at Brooklyn’s Public School 91 in New York City

  BACKGROUND: Having spent nearly 20 years in the job, Evelyn was well respected at work and in his neighborhood. The native Trinidadian described himself as “happy-go-lucky,” had no criminal record, and was less than two years from retirement.

  During Prohibition, the jury in one bootlegging case was arrested after they drank the evidence.

  STORY: On March 19, 2007, police officers arrived at P.S. 91, arrested Evelyn, cuffed him, and took him away for questioning. Police commissioner Raymond Kelly announced that Evelyn was accused of the “heinous rape of an eight-year-old student on multiple occasions.” Detectives told Evelyn that if he didn’t confess, they’d make sure he got a life sentence in the “worst kind” of prison, where he’d likely be raped and possibly killed. If Evelyn did confess, they said, he’d get a lesser sentence. They even said they had DNA evidence against him. “How?” replied Evelyn. “I didn’t do anything!” Then the police took the unorthodox step of locking him up in Rikers Island Prison with actual murderers and rapists.

  OUTCOME: Three days later, police finally interviewed the accuser. It turned out that she was known as a “troubled child” who had lied about being abused on previous occasions. (The principal knew this, but failed to tell the police.) Worse still, the girl described her attacker as a bald, white man, yet cops arrested Evelyn, who is black. The charges were dropped immediately, and Evelyn was free. But the story had already gained worldwide attention. “On the bus home,” Evelyn said, “a woman was reading the paper with my picture on the cover. The headline said ‘The Rapist.’” He couldn’t walk down the street without people pointing at him or insulting him. He was given his job back, but was unable to go near the school for months because he’d “start shaking.” At last report, Evelyn was suing the city of New York for $10 million. “They ruined my life. I don’t want those charges just to be sealed,” he said. “I want them to be washed away!”

  THE ACCUSED: Richard Jewell, a security guard at the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta, Georgia

  STORY: Jewell was patrolling Centennial Park, the “town square” of the Olympics, at 1:00 a.m. when he noticed a suspicious bag under a bench, only a few feet away from where thousands of people were enjoying a concert. Inside the bag were three pipe bombs surrounded by a bunch of nails. Jewell called the bomb squad and immediately started evacuating people. A few minutes later, the bombs exploded. Although two people were killed and dozens more were injured, it could have been much, much worse.

  According to criminal law: Only 3 people are necessary for a disturbance to be called a riot.

  The press called Jewell a hero as the manhunt for the bomber began. President Bill Clinton announced: “We will spare no effort to find out who was responsible for this murderous act. We will track them down. We will bring them to justice.” Suddenly, the FBI was under a lot of pressure, which may be why they leaked a “lone bomber” criminal profile, with a note that Jewell was a “person of interest.” The next day, The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran this headline: “FBI suspects hero guard may have planted bomb.” For the rest of the summer, the FBI and the press followed Jewell wherever he went. Editorials called him a “failed cop” who planted the bomb and then called it in just so people would think he was a hero. News cameras were there when the FBI searched his apartment and special reports broke into regular programming to broadcast the searches live.

  OUTCOME: In October 1996, the FBI announced that they had no evidence linking Jewell to the bombings and that he was no longer a suspect. So did he return to being regarded as a hero? No. “No one wanted anything to do with him,” said his lawyer. Jewell sued four news outlets for libel (but not the FBI). “This isn’t about the money,” he said in 2006. “It’s about clearing my name.” CNN, NBC, and the New York Post all agreed to settle their lawsuits, but the Atlanta Journal Constitution would not. That case was dismissed a few months after Jewell died in 2007 of heart failure at age 44.

  SO WHO DID IT? In 2003 the FBI arrested Eric Rudolph, who had also bombed an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta. Investigators were able to link him to the Olympic bombing because of similarities among the three bombs.

  THE ACCUSED: Abu Bakker Qassim, a Chinese citizen

  BACKGROUND: Qassim is a Uighur Muslim (pronounced WEE-gur) living in northwestern China. Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group that the Chinese government considers terrorists, so they are persecuted and also highly taxed. With little possibility of work and his wife pregnant with twins, Qassim fled the country in 1999, hoping to join a Uighur community in Turkey, make some money, and then send for his family. He never made it.

  STORY: His journey led him to the wrong place at the wrong time: Afghanistan in September 2001. When the United States retaliated for the 9-11 attacks, the village where Qassim was staying was bombed. Along with several other people, he hid in caves in the Tora Bora mountains. Known as a terrorist stronghold, the caves were bombed relentlessly. Qassim wasn’t a terrorist, but he’d learned how to use a machine gun at a Uighur village. He escaped to Pakistan in late 2001, where his group met some people who promised to take them to the city. But instead they were led into a trap. The people were bounty hunters, receiving $5,000 from the American government for every terrorist they turned over. Because Qassim had received weapons training, he was considered an enemy combatant. He was incarcerated in Afghanistan, and six months later, along with several other Uighers, he was transported to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

  In 1888, during construction of Scotland Yard headquarters workers discovered the remains of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims.

  OUTCOME: Three and a half years after their arrival, Qassim and four of his countrymen were listed as “NLEC”—No Longer Enemy Combatants. A federal judge ruled that the men be set free. But they weren’t. They spent another year in Guantanamo—not because the U.S. wanted to keep them, but because no other country would take them. “After four years at Guantanamo Bay,” he explained, “you earn the title ‘terrorist.’ And the Chinese strongly believe it.” Had Qassim been returned to China, he said, he would be tortured. American officials agreed, but also denied him entry to the United States. The governments of Canada and several European countries rejected him as well. Only one country opened its borders to him: Albania. Even though there were no other Uighurs there and he didn’t speak Albanian, he went there and worked hard to make a life. Six years after he left his wife, he was finally able to phone her for the first time. At last report, Qassim was working at an Italian restaurant in Albania and was close to raising enough money to retrieve his wife and the 10-year-old twins he’s never met. He’s also petitioning the U.S. government to release 16 other Uighurs who are still being held at Guantanamo, all of whom he says are innocent.

  THE ACCUSED: Eric Nordmark, 35, a homeless man in Garden Grove, California

  STORY: In May 2003, Nordmark was walking down the street when two police officers told him to sit down on the curb. Nordmark explained that he was an “army vet looking for work.” A few minutes later, the cops brought him to the station and took his mug shot. Then he was released. A few days later, he found a job setting up rides at a carnival. After his first day, he went to a store to buy some beer and cigarettes. When he walked out, the police were waiting for him. They cuffed him and arrested him. The charge: the assault of three 11-year-old girls. A few days earlier, the girls had claimed they were attacked by a homeless man on the way home from school, and escaped when one of them kicked the man in the groin. Nordmark’s
disheveled appearance matched their description, and two of the three girls identified him in a photo lineup. Bail was set at $50,000, but Nordmark didn’t even have $50, so he was forced to remain in jail until his trial began...eight months later. Although Nordmark repeatedly denied attacking or even ever meeting the girls, several witnesses were set to testify that the local kids were afraid of him. On the second day of the trial, one of the accusers took the stand. “He started choking me,” she testified. “And then I turned purple...I couldn’t breathe, and I felt like I was going to black out.” That night, Nordmark told his lawyer that if he was convicted, he’d kill himself before he ever got to prison—he’d heard how child molesters are treated in jail.

  OUTCOME: The following day, Nordmark was brought back into the courtroom. Only the lawyers, the judge, and one of the girls were there. The judge told him, “All charges have been dismissed. You’re free to go.” The girl apologized and explained that they made up the story because they got home late from school that day and didn’t want to get in trouble. The following week, all three girls were arrested at their school for the false accusation and led away in handcuffs. Two were given 30 days in detention. The girl who committed perjury got 45 days. Nordmark told reporters he wasn’t really angry with the accusers. “Kids are kids. They do bonehead things.” What upset him most was that the police didn’t perform a thorough investigation at the beginning. All they had to do, he said, was interview the girls individually and the truth would have come out. But they interviewed them as a group, and Nordmark ended up spending eight months in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

  * * *

  COP-BOT

  The city of Perm, Russia, spent a fortune on a crime-fighting robot designed to patrol streets and beam video to police stations, alerting officers to crimes in progress. After just three hours on the job, the six-foot-tall, egg-shaped robot broke down. Reason: It was raining, which shorted out the robot’s electrical system.

  Ew! The 3-acre University of Tennessee Body Farm has about 40 corpses decomposing at a time.

  THE NIGERIAN SCAM

  When Uncle John checked his e-mail this morning, he found one from someone claiming to need help moving millions of dollars out of their country. Sound familiar? Here’s some background info on one of the most popular Internet scams of all time.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL

  To: TRUSTWORTHY AMERICAN

  From: MIRIAM_ABACHA@NIGERIA.GOV

  Subject: URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL

  DEAR SIR, SINCE MY HUSBAND THE FORMER PRESIDENT DIED THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT HAS FROZEN OUR FAMILY BANK ACCOUNT IN SWITZERLAND (US$22,000,000).

  PLEASE HELP US TRANSFER THIS MONEY INTO YOUR COUNTRY. IF YOU ALLOW US TO DEPOSIT THE FUNDS IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT TEMPORARILY, WE WILL GIVE YOU 20%, OR $4,400,000.

  THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% SAFE. THIS MATTER IS STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. THANK YOU.

  MRS. MIRIAM ABACHA

  If you’re online, there’s a very good chance that an e-mail similar to this one may be sitting in your in-box right now. Requests for help moving large sums of money out of third world countries are believed to be the second-most common type of spam (after sales pitches for male virility drugs). And as you’ve probably already guessed, the offer is too good to be true—it’s a classic scam.

  OUT OF AFRICA

  Cons like these are called “Nigerian scams,” because when they first started circulating in the 1970s, many came from the west African nation of Nigeria. They’re also known as “419 scams,” after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with e-mail crime. Today they can originate from any number of countries. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, they’ve even come from people claiming to have connections to the former dictator or his dead sons, Uday and Qusay. But Nigeria is still considered to be the capital of these scams, so the nickname has stuck.

  Handguns are used in 51% of all murders committed in the United States.

  THE BASIC SCAM

  • Collecting $4.4 million for doing almost nothing is a pretty attractive come-on and, for many, too powerful to resist. If you do reply, the scammer will promise the money again—but this time, he’ll also ask you to send a small sum up front, $1,000 or more, to help in transferring the funds out of Nigeria and into your bank account. Maybe they’ll claim they need it to bribe an official, or to pay a fee or tax that’s holding up the millions that will soon be yours. But sending $1,000 or even $5,000 to secure a payoff of $4.4 million seems like a bargain, doesn’t it?

  • What happens if you wire the $1,000 to Nigeria? One thing is certain: You won’t get $4.4 million. The scammer will invent new obstacles to explain why the money is being held up and will ask you for more money to clear up the red tape. No matter how many times you send more money, some new problem will always arise, requiring still more money to help sort it out.

  ADVANCED SCAMS

  Bank Account Clean Out: Why settle for stealing your money in installments? The e-mailer may ask you for your bank account number(s), as well as your business cards and blank sheets of letterhead. If you send them the numbers and the materials, they’ll use them to empty all your bank accounts in one fell swoop.

  The Travel Plan: Some scammers even invite victims to travel to Nigeria, where they pose as bank or government officials, meeting in borrowed offices in a bank or government building. While there, you’ll be asked for even more money. If you don’t have it, or refuse to hand it over, you can be beaten, held for ransom, or even killed. The U.S. State Department estimates that at least 15 people have been murdered after being lured to Nigeria as part of a 419 scam.

  Foreign Lottery: Have you ever received an e-mail telling you that you’ve won millions in a foreign lottery? Or that you’ve inherited a fortune from a relative you’ve never heard of? Any time you’re promised a fortune but are asked to pay money up front, it’s a version of a 419 scam.

  Infamous stagecoach robber “Black Bart” was actually Charles Bolton, a shy, quiet bank clerk.

  eBay Car Purchase: There’s even a version of the scam that targets people selling cars on eBay. The scammer will buy your car and ask you to ship it to Nigeria, but will explain that a friend in the United States who owes them money will pay for it. If the car sells for $5,000, the friend will send you a cashier’s check for $10,000—the amount they supposedly owe to the buyer—and arrange for you to wire the difference to the buyer. By the time the issuing bank notifies you that the cashier’s check is a fake, you’ve already sent your $5,000 (and perhaps even your car) to Nigeria.

  HISTORY

  The Nigerian scam started in the 1970s. In those days, scammers sent airmail letters to names and addresses pulled out of old phone books and business directories. Sending letters was expensive, so the scammers usually targeted businesses instead of individuals, since businesses were likely to have more money.

  And the volume of mail sent was miniscule by today’s electronic standards: At the peak of the snail mail phase in the early 1980s, it’s estimated that 250,000 Nigerian scam letters were sent to the United States every year. When fax machines caught on, the scam became cheaper than ever. But what really revolutionized it was, of course, the Internet. Who needs stamps or long-distance fax charges? Computers made it possible to send thousands or even millions of scam e-mails with a single keystroke. Costs dropped so low that scammers could afford to target individuals instead of businesses, and they set their sights on pulling lots of little scams instead of a few big ones.

  A lot of people have gotten rich off the scams, and in addition to buying mansions and luxury cars, many of Nigeria’s newest millionaires invested their ill-gotten gains in Internet cafés—from which even more Nigerian scam e-mails could be sent.

  SCAM FACTS

  • No one knows for sure just how much money Nigerian scammers fleece from their victims each year because many victims are too embarrassed to come forward. The U.S. Secret Service estimates that Americans lose as much as $100 million a year.

  �
�� For years the Nigerian government ignored the problem, but now they’re taking steps to fight it—taking out ads in major American newspapers, allowing the U.S. Secret Service to open offices in Nigeria, and even warning westerners as they arrive at Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. But nothing seems to stem the flow of victims.

  First murder in the New World: Plymouth colonist John Billington shot John Newcomen (1630).

  BIG FISH

  The National Consumers League calculates that the average loss to 419 scams in 2001 was $5,957. Have you been conned? Take heart—some of the largest losses have been racked up by people working in law, banking, or finance—people who should have known better. Take these folks, for example:

  Graeme Kenneth Rutherford. Rutherford, a star money manager and former Citibank executive in New Zealand, was taken in by scammers who told him they wanted to pay him $300,000 a year to manage $30 million for a Nigerian oil company...but first he had to help them transfer the money out of Nigeria. Rutherford poured $600,000 of his own money into the scam, borrowed more from his father, then talked wealthy friends and business associates out of $7 million more, telling them he was investing their money in safe European investments with “locked-in profits” of at least 70%. He sank every penny into the scam and lost it all.

  In July 2000, Rutherford was convicted on 23 counts of forgery and fraud and sentenced to six and a half years in prison. He blames his poor judgment on painkillers he was taking for his sore back. “My resolve was hardened by my absolute conviction that the Nigerian scheme was genuine,” he says.

  Nelson Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi, a Brazilian, was a director of the Banco Noereste Brazil in the mid-1990s, when scammers claiming to control the Central Bank of Nigeria “awarded” him a million-dollar contract to finance the construction of a new international airport in Nigeria. The airport didn’t exist, of course, but that didn’t stop Sakaguchi from transferring $250 million of the bank’s money to Africa without notifying any of his superiors, making this by far the largest 419 scam to come to light so far.