As I've noted in prior blogs, there's all manner of fraud abroad in the land.* True crime fans and writers might want to bone up on car repair fraud. Most of us lucky enough to own vehicles have experienced such fraud. Thus many readers can relate to it. And car repair fraud sometimes has a "wow" factor that writers strive for. Car repair fraud can even be elegant in its simplicity as the video below shows. A trend in writing true-crime stories is to make criminals so clever and resourceful … [Read more...]
Lori Loughlin getting less prison time ‘n other Admission Cheats!
A quick update in the long-simmering college admission scandal. The Lori Loughlin shoe has now dropped in the scandal, long after the Huffman one did. See my blog here for my predictions about this case would turn out for privileged celebs. Lori Loughlin, designer hubby, spent months fighting charges In a stunning development Hollywood star Lori Loughlin and her husband signed plea deals and admitted guilt yesterday. Her attractive face frowning at times, and nodding sadly at others, … [Read more...]
College admission scandal. Now, waiting for the Loughlin shoe to drop.
A quick update in the long broiling college admission scandal. The Huffman shoe has dropped in the scandal. See my Varsity Blues blog about this when the case broke. The Sentence. A judge just sentenced actress Felicity Huffman to 14 days behind bars in a federal prison, a $30,000 fine, one year of supervised release, and 250 hours of community service. For more about what went down today in Boston, go here. Celebs (Huffman in ctr) in college admission scandal. My take on the … [Read more...]
True Crime — do these reasons explain why you love it?
Some have called my book-in-progress a true crime memoir. Its working title is Privileged Killers...and a criminologist mugged by reality. It's tagline — When friends kill and loved ones betray him, a progressive criminologist must ditch his idealism or lose his wife and even his life. True Crime rules...these days. Whether seen as a pure true crime story, or a hybrid true crime memoir, my book's alerted me to the huge appetite we have these days for true … [Read more...]
CRIME FRAUD Tutorial—Imposters Anna & Maddie —“Skilled” Criminals
Today's blog is one among my series on "skilled" criminals —fences, imposters, forgers, and art thieves. There's also a related series on "unskilled"criminals. The hope in this blog is to fire up writers, provide info to criminology students and true-crime fans, and to, well, have some fun. Recent Russian immigrant to the U.S. Anna Sorokin created the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey, pretending to be a wealthy German heiress. On May 10, 2019, a court sentenced her to 4 to 12 years in … [Read more...]
Celebs & CEOs are likely to beat the rap in college fraud.
As someone who got into Yale the hard, old-fashioned way, the fact that celebs & CEOs are likely to beat the rap for bribing colleges outrages me. I've blogged about bias and discrimination in favor celebs and other elites before. Most recently, here and here. The defendants are a "catalogue of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said during his press conference announcing charges.Most importantly, he also said, "There can be no separate college-admissions system … [Read more...]
Announcing the Criminology Research Tutorials series.
I’ve expanded the original scope of this site from bullying and discrimination to include criminal justice, starting with this Criminology Research Tutorials series. I am a criminology professor, so I have a lot of great info to share. Today I’m excited to announce a new series of tutorials on criminology research. Expect genuinely useful tips for writers, journalists and criminal justice students...mixed in with gallows humor from time to time. Not sold? Here are seven reasons you should … [Read more...]