September 27th, 2011 – 5:29pm
The Washington Examiner
By Emily Babay
Carmela Dela Rosa told detectives she “did a terrible thing” when she flung her 2-year-old granddaughter to her death off a six-story walkway at Tysons Corner Center, according to a taped interrogation played in court Tuesday.
Dela Rosa, 50, is charged with murder in the November 2010 killing of Angelyn Ogdoc. Her attorneys are presenting an insanity defense at her trial, which began Monday in Fairfax County Circuit Court.
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Read more: courts, Washington Examiner, writing
September 19th, 2011 – 5:12pm
The Washington Examiner
By Emily Babay
The number of rapes reported in D.C. spiked nearly 25 percent in 2010, the largest such increase in the country in a year when most states and the nation as a whole saw a decline.
FBI statistics released Monday show that 187 forcible rapes were reported in the District last year, up from 150 in 2009. That’s a sharp contrast to the 5.5. percent decline nationwide.
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Read more: crime, Washington Examiner, writing
September 18th, 2011 – 5:23pm
The Washington Examiner
By Emily Babay
The methods they use to get drugs into the United States range from soup packets to suitcases to their own bodies. But many drug smugglers nabbed at local airports have at least one thing in common: They say they turned to the drug trade because of financial hardships.
In court papers, attorneys for drug couriers cite myriad economic woes that befell their clients, leading them to work as drug mules to recoup lost funds. A few of their stories:
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Read more: courts, crime, enterprise, Washington Examiner, writing
September 18th, 2011 – 5:21pm
The Washington Examiner
By Emily Babay
These weren’t clams you’d want to serve on the dinner table. The juice boxes weren’t what you’d put in your child’s lunch box. The soup wasn’t what you’d use to nurse yourself back to health. And the statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph definitely weren’t fit for a church.
They’re all methods used by drug smugglers trying to get their contraband into the United States through Washington-area airports, sending couriers on flights with cocaine-stuffed clams, soup packets and statues, or with stomachs full of ingested heroin pellets.
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Read more: courts, crime, enterprise, Washington Examiner, writing