Stephen Rakes' Death 'Suspicious': Police Investigate After Whitey Bulger Trial Witness' Body Found

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Authorities say that the death of a man who was on the witness list in the trial of mobster James "Whitey" Bulger is suspicious.

The body of Stephen "Stippo" Rakes was found on Wednesday in Lincoln, Mass. The cause of death is yet unknown, and the Middlesex district attorney's office reported that there were "no obvious signs of trauma."

An unnamed law enforcement source told New England Cable News that the death is being investigated as suspicious. The cause of death is pending a complete autopsy and toxicology results.

The timing of Rakes' death was noteworthy, given that he was prepared to testify against one of the country's most notorious fugitives. Bulger, 83, is on trial for 19 murders, racketeering, and other charges.

Rakes, 59, was prepared to testify that he was threatened, with a gun, to sell his South Boston liquor store at below-market value in 1984 so that Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang could use it as a front, according to NBC News. He alleged that Bulger placed the gun on his kitchen table and made demands.

"One of my daughters picked up the gun and that's when I called my wife to say we were selling the store," he told HuffPost Crime last month.

Last week, however, Bulger's former associate Kevin Weeks testified that Rakes was trying to shake down the gangsters for cash, sparking the gun incident.

Rakes waited for decades for the opportunity to testify against Bulger, but was told after Weeks' testimony that he was taken off the witness list. It's yet unclear why his name was dropped.

His body was found at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. He didn't have a wallet or identification with him, WHDH reports.

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Jean Terese Keating, Oregon Fugitive, Arrested After Bragging About Fatal Crash: Police

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Jean Terese Keating is expected to appear in court after 15 years on the run following a suspected drunken driving crash. She was finally caught after overheard bragging in a Canadian bar about the incident, police say. (Linn County Sheriff's Office)

An Oregon fugitive wanted for a 1997 fatal car accident is back in custody after Canadian police say they received a tip she had been bragging about getting away with the crime at a local bar.

Earlier this year, authorities in Manitoba, a province in eastern Canada, said they received a tip that Jean Terese Keating, 54, was overheard bragging about getting away with suspected a drunken driving crash in the United States several years ago, The Oregonian reported.

She was taken into custody in Canada in April and booked into the Linn County Jail in Albany, Ore., Thursday, according to the report. She was originally indicted on charges of manslaughter, DUII (driving under the influence of intoxicants), reckless driving and reckless endangerment stemming from the crash that caused the death of Jewel Anderson 16 years ago.

On April 13, 1997, Keating, then 38, was driving on Interstate 5 when she veered right and sideswiped a car driven by Anderson, 65, according to local reports. Anderson lost control of her vehicle, crossed the center median and was hit by an oncoming sedan. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Keating was indicted in June 1997, but failed to make her scheduled court appearance. Her lawyer was worried Keating had "flown the coop," according to local station KVAL.

A warrant was issued for her arrest. For years, officials followed dead-end leads to no avail. Then, earlier this year, one tip led to a major breakthrough.

After hearing about the bar bragging, a Manitoba officer was able to identify Keating -- who was using a different name at the time -- by comparing fingerprints from a past drunken driving arrest in Canada with prints from the U.S. database, the Register-Guard notes. She was arrested April 8. On June 13, she was taken into custody in North Dakota.

Anderson's family shared a statement with the Oregon State Police regarding Keating's capture:

While there is no price to be put on repayment for taking a life, and it certainly won't bring Jewel back, we are thankful that finally after 16 years of her running, hiding and torment, our families will have some closure; knowing that Teresa Jean Keating is in custody and justice will be served. In the past 16 years we have felt hurt, betrayed, confused and most of all a void in our lives. We have missed her not getting to be at all our happy occasions like graduations, weddings, births, birthdays and many more.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times reports she is due in court Friday.

Michael DeMaio Beats wife with a baseball bat, it says 'Only lost': police

Police say that a rich man from Connecticut who brutally beat his wife with a baseball bat told them "just lost."

Michael DeMaio, 55, was charged with attempted murder when he attacked his wife, Dianne DeMaio, after a debate on Tuesday night, CBS reported.

According to the Connecticut Post, the woman told him that he left her before the attack.

Police received a call from Greenwich mansion $7.3 million in the 18 and arrived to find Dianne DeMaio, 54, bleeding profusely from the head, according to News 12. An officer at the scene also said that a portion of the woman's skull was soft.

Police say the mother of Dianne DeMaio was in the residence and told them: "Monster hit and is dying," according to the Connecticut Post.

Michael DeMaio allegedly confessed to beating his wife with a baseball bat several times because he was angry, telling officers, "what was lost, lost". Officers said the man seemed strangely quiet.

Dianne DeMaio was severely injured and has brain damage. She was transferred to an acute care hospital on Wednesday, but his status is uncertain.

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The police search House again about Aaron Hernandez for Patriots

NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, mass. - police searches again in the vicinity of the home of the New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, a week after the body of his friend was found about a mile away.

Some law enforcement officers wore costumes on Monday while searching for near House of Hernandez and the industrial park where Odin Lloyd's body was found.

Lloyd, a football player semi-professional 27 years of age for the bandits in Boston, was found murdered on June 17. Relatives said that it was emerging from the sister of the bride of Hernandez, who the two men were friends and that both men were together on the last night of the life of Lloyd.

An Attleboro district court official said that no new documents were available in the case of the Monday morning. Office of the Procurator of the Bristol County also not to disclose any new information about the case, which his spokesman called "an active and ongoing investigation".

A court official said last week that it had issued three raids, but none of them had been returned, meaning that they were not yet public.

Hernandez has not commented on the investigation of the murder, but has seen with his lawyer.

The Patriots drafted him from the University of Florida in 2010, and last summer gave him a five-year contract worth $40 million.

'Weed' Man Arrested For Stabbing 'Beer' Man In Times Square; Alien And Predator Questioned By Police

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"Help! I Need Money For Weed!" reads the sign of Times Square's "weed" man, who was arrested Friday night after he reportedly stabbed the area's "beer" man during an altercation. (Photo via Aniket Thakur/Flickr)

You really can't make this up.

According to reports, a Times Square panhandler holding a "I Need Money for Weed" sign, also known as the area's "weed" man, was arrested for stabbing Times Square's "beer" man, who carries a similar sign reading "I Need Beer."

During an altercation Friday night, the two Times Square regulars started arguing on 42nd Street near 7th Avenue where the attack took place, The New York Daily News reports.

The "beer" man, Wayne Semancik, told NY1 that the argument was over territory in the New York City locale.

"When you spit in my face, darling, I'm going to hit you. I don't care who you are, how big you are, I'm going to hit you," Semancik told the New York news channel. "So the man, he pulled out a pen because I was hitting him, and he started stabbing me in the face, and I have five stab wounds in my face right now."

The "weed" man in question is likely Joshua Long since he's well known for his memorable sign.

As seen in a photo posted on The Daily News' site, two other characters in the area, Alien and Predator, were questioned as bystanders by police after the debacle.

The argument is the latest in a series of unusual incidents that involve costumed characters in the tourist-heavy area. In April, a man wearing a Cookie Monster costume was arrested for allegedly shoving a 2-year-old whose mother apparently refused to tip the cartoon character.

Local authorities have not stated what charges, if any, have been filed.

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Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid

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A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.

Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.

The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.

The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being alleged involves violence.

In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to perform license inspections at barbershops in Orlando, Fla.; and to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police suspected customers and employees were having public sex. A federal investigation later found that Atlanta police had made up the allegations of public sex.

Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers.

Radley Balko is a senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington Post. He is also the author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.

This story has been updated to clarify that a federal investigation found that the Atlantic police officers who raided a gay bar had made up the allegations of public sex.

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Ray Kelly, New York Police Commissioner, hit the secret of NSA surveillance

Commissioner of police of New York Ray Kelly is slammed the Obama administration for its handling of the scandal of the national security administration - but not because they think that the Government was extending its scope too.

Conference of the upper parts of the city said that the public would have been more favorable to the idea of the NSA to spy on their electronic communications had not been keeps a secret.

"I think that the American public can accept the fact if you tell them each time lift phone will be recorded and the Government", Kelly said at an event on Monday, according to the New York Daily News. "I think that the public can understand.

Although Kelly suggested that the contents of the phone calls of Americans is being recorded, the Guardian reported this month that the Government has been collecting so-called metadata, which includes the numbers that marked a particular phone and time, location and duration of the calls, but not the contents of the talks.

Error of Obama, said Kelly, was not to be more explicit about what information from the NSA is collecting, and what internal mechanisms to draw the line.

"I think that people comfort level we can rise if actually information out as to have these controls and these protections within the NSA," he said, according to the New York Post.

Kelly came under fire in 2012 after revelations about surveillance of the police of New York and of Muslim communities.

At the time, defended police spying. "Not everyone will be happy, but our main mission, our goal is to keep this city safe and save lives," said Kelly, according to CBS in New York.

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India rape arrests: Police detain 3 suspects in violation of American woman (VIDEO)

In this photo taken on 07 may 2013 a India rape victim is reflected in a mirror in her house on the outskirts of Lucknow. (Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW DELHI--India police arrested three men Thursday on suspicion of violating a gang of an American woman in the northern resort of Manali City earlier this week, the latest sexual assault of high-profile in the country.

Vinod Dhawan police said that the men are accused of offer to the 30-year-old woman a lift in his truck while she was hitchhiking to his pension on Monday night. The woman said the men and then led to a secluded place and raped her.

Dhawan said three men, 22 and 24, 540 kilometers (335 miles) were arrested Thursday near Manali, North of New Delhi.

Police were interrogating the suspects. Other details were not immediately available.

Preoccupation with sexual assault in the India has increased since the gross violation of a woman in New Delhi in December sparked protests demanding better protection for women.

On Wednesday, police arrested a man accused of raping an Irish woman who volunteered in charity for children in the eastern city of Calcutta India.

The suspect, a local businessman, had attended a part of organized women to celebrate his 21st birthday, police said.

The woman told police that later went to the House of the man, where he drank a cup of tea, fainted and was then raped.

In March, six men were arrested in the rape of a Swiss cyclist.

Since the December attack, the Government passed a law increasing prison sentences for rape and doing voyeurism, I stalking, attacks the acid and trafficking punishable in criminal law.

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Philadelphia Police Commissioner Asks Feds To Review Department's Use Of Deadly Force

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey asked the Department of Justice to review the rising number of cops using deadly force in his city.

PHILADELPHIA — A website says Philadelphia's police commissioner has asked federal authorities to take a look at the police department's use of deadly force.

Commissioner Charles Ramsey tells Philly.com ( ) that he is seeking the review due to the rising number of police-involved shootings. http://bit.ly/12gM5dm

Philadelphia police shot 52 suspects last year, killing 15 of them. In 2011 police wounded or killed 35 people.

Officers shot and killed a man Saturday, the fourth police-involved shooting in as many days and the third resulting in a suspect's death.

Ramsey says the number of shootings "gets people wondering if they were all justified."

He says police have been looking at the issue since December and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice "agrees this is a good course of action."

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