20 Biggest Crimes of the Year

December 9, 2019 by John Harrington

As 2019 fades into history, America ruefully looks back on another year of mass murders, bias-inspired crimes, child and sex abuse cases, fraud involving the privileged class, and other misdeeds.

Using media sources such as The New York Times, National Public Radio, and The Associated Press, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed hundreds of popular news stories to create a list of the year’s biggest crime stories. We selected stories that stood out for how many lives they impacted, for being in some respects unprecedented, and for involving people or institutions of great importance to the public. We also aimed for a variety of subjects to cover the wide range of notable 2019 crime stories.

America was shaken by two mass-shooting events in a 24 hour period this past August, renewing the debate over gun control in Washington, D.C. as well as in living rooms and workplaces across the nation. These are the deadliest mass shootings in our nation’s history.

Crimes such as a shooting in a California synagogue and church burnings in Louisiana reminded us that bias and hate remain an intractable problems in the United States.

The wide-ranging sex-trafficking scandal involving pedophile Jeffrey Epstein implicated various high profile individuals, including President Donald Trump, ex-President Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew of Britain’s royal family. Epstein was jailed in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges and later died in prison. His death was officially ruled a suicide by the New York City medical examiner.

Other crimes involved the entitled elite, such as the college admissions scandal in which affluent and well-connected people used their status to gain an unfair advantage for their children to get into America’s most exclusive universities. It was a reminder that in a nation that prides itself on merit, the playing field is not level. Here are the worst scandals that shocked Hollywood.

Click here to see the 20 biggest crimes of the year

Super Bowl sex trafficking
> Date: Jan. 31

A joint effort between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies resulted in the arrest of 33 people on sex trafficing charges. The arrests were made in Atlanta during the days leading up to the Super Bowl. Criminals started the prostitution in anticipation of the influx of tourists coming to the city ahead of the big game. Several sex trafficking victims were rescued as a part of the police effort.

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College admissions scandal
> Date: March 12

On March 12, the Justice Department announced charges in the biggest college-admission scam in the history of the nation. The scandal exposed how far wealthy and well-connected parents are willing to go to get their children into the nation’s most prestigious universities.

Among those caught up in the scandal were actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Loughlin and her husband, fashion mogul Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded not guilty to bribery charges for allegedly paying an admissions consultant $500,000 to create a bogus sports profile for their daughter to help her get into USC. Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison for paying thousands of dollars to have her daughter’s SAT scores falsely boosted.

YouTube performing children abuse case
> Date: March 20

An Arizona woman was accused of neglecting and physically abusing her seven adopted children who appeared in videos on YouTube. The children appeared on a family comedy called “Fantastic Adventures” that received 242 million views and had 800,000 subscribers. YouTube shut down the series amid child abuse allegations.

The incident raised concerns about the lack of oversight in using underage children on the video-sharing platform. Machelle Hobson allegedly denied the children food and water, limited their bathroom visits, and pepper-sprayed their genitals if the children did not perform to her standards. Child actors are protected by legal safeguards with strict rules regarding the number of hours they work in the television and motion picture industry, but the standards have not been outlined for newer media platforms like YouTube.Hobson, who was charged with child abuse, died in early November.

Louisiana church fires
> Date: March 26, April 2 and April 4

In late March and early April 2019, three churches in Louisiana’s St. Landry Parish were burned to the ground: St. Mary Baptist Church, Greater Union Baptist Church, and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. Each church had a congregation that was predominantly or exclusively black. Months later, suspect Holden James Matthews, a white man, was indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime and arson charges. If convicted, Matthews could face decades behind bars.

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Robert Mueller case
> Date: April 18

After two years of investigation and 2,800 subpoenas, special counsel Robert Mueller, who was tasked with finding if any connections existed between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, did not conclude that President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Mueller added that the findings of the report do not exonerate the president either. Mueller also concluded that, though the investigation found links between the Russian government and individuals in the Trump campaign, “the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges” of a conspiracy with Russia.

Poway synagogue shooting
> Date: April 27

On the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover on April 27, a gunman shouting anti-Semitic slurs went into a synagogue in Southern California and opened fire with an assault-style weapon, killing one person and wounding two others. The attack occurred in Poway, a town located 25 miles north of San Diego. The incident at the synagogue followed a series of religiously influenced assaults, including a mass shooting at a New Zealand mosque the previous month and a church bombing in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday a week earlier. The California synagogue attack happened six months after a synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked in an incident that left 11 dead in one of the worst anti-Semitic acts in American history.

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Connecticut mom missing
> Date: May 24

Jennifer Dulos has been missing since she dropped her children off at school on May 24 — and her husband, Fotis Dulos, is a prime suspect. The case took a strange turn on Dec. 4. Fotis Dulos appeared in civil court because his estranged wife’s family is suing him for failing to repay $2 million in loans from his wife’s family for Dulos’ homebuilding business. Outside the courtroom, Dulos told reporters he wished his wife and her family happy holidays and that “I just pray that they give my kids my love and my best wishes.” Prosecutors think Dulos carried out a violent attack on his wife in the garage in their New Canaan home. His wife’s blood was detected on items there, but her body has not been found.

Virginia Beach mass shooting
> Date: May 31

On May 31, a former Virginia Beach employee opened fire in a municipal building in the city as city employees were preparing to leave for the weekend. The gunman killed 12 people and wounded four others before police killed him after an intense gun battle.

Edward Gallagher
> Date: July 2

Navy Seal and sniper Edward Gallagher stood trial this summer for war crimes in 2017. He was charged with stabbing and killing a young Iraqi boy and posing for a photo with the boy’s body, as well as killing a young girl and an elderly man.

His eventual and somewhat unexpected not guilty verdict, as well as the national news spotlight the case received, was partially the result of President Donald Trump’s interest in it. The president had indicated before the trial that he would pardon Gallgaher, and Trump Organization lawyer Marc Mukasey was among the high profile defense attorneys assigned to the case. While Gallagher’s acquittal may demonstrate the extent of a U.S. president’s ability to affect judicial outcomes and create a public spectacle, it also revealed to many how unethical behavior is handled in the military.

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Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy
> Date: July 8

Financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July 2019 in New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. The arrest received international attention, in part due to Epstein’s many powerful connections and associates, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew. Denied bail, Epstein was found dead the following month in his Manhattan jail cell. His death was officially ruled a suicide.

El Paso, TX, Walmart mass shooting
> Date: Aug. 3

A shooting at Walmart in El Paso on Aug. 3 killed 22 people and wounded 24 others in the deadliest shooting incident of the year and one of the worst in U.S. history. The assailant, Patrick Crusius, drove more than 10 hours from a Dallas suburb to El Paso to carry out the attack. At the time of shooting, Walmart did not have a security guard at the store. Crusius, 21, pleaded not guilty. The store, which serves a mostly Hispanic clientele, reopened three months later.

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Dayton, Ohio mass shooting
> Date: Aug. 4

The nation was staggered by a second mass shooting within 24 hours of the shooting tragedy in Texas when a gunman shot and killed nine people and injured 27 others in downtown Dayton, Ohio, at around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. The gunman, Connor Betts, was shot and killed by police. Betts, wearing a mask and bulletproof vest and brandishing a .223-caliber high-capacity rifle, targeted victims in a district known for its nightlife. His sister was among his victims.

Drive-by shooting spree in Odessa and Midland
> Date: Aug. 31

A drive-by shooting attack left seven people dead and 24 wounded in the west Texas cities of Odessa and Midland on Aug. 31. Odessa police said the attack began when a state trooper on Interstate 20 attempted to pull over the suspect. The motorist, later identified as Seth Ator, shot the trooper and then drove west toward Odessa from Midland. The gunman stole a postal truck and shot indiscriminately while in transit. Police followed him to a movie theater in Odessa, where he wounded two police officers before he was killed. While such attacks are not rare in the United States, the Odessa and Midland drive-by shootings were among the most deadly in recent years.

Serial killer Robert Hayes captured
> Date: Sept. 15

In September 2019, authorities in Florida placed suspected serial killer Robert Hayes under arrest. Hayes was officially charged with the 2016 murder of a woman whose body was discovered on the side of the road in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is also the leading suspect in three other murders dating back to 2005. Police linked Heys to the killings with DNA evidence.

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Amber Guyger police officer found guilty
> Date: Oct. 1

In a story that underscored the racial tension in the nation, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder in the shooting death of her neighbor, a black man. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Guyger shot her unarmed neighbor, Botham Jean, in his apartment, which she said she mistaken for hers and thought he was robbing her apartment.

330 arrested for child porn
> Date: Oct. 16

More than 330 people were arrested in mid-October following an international takedown of one of the world’s largest child pornography websites, and reportedly the first one to accept bitcoin in exchange for content. Federal officials seized over 8 terabytes of child pornography, equal to about 10,000 full CD-ROMs. The operation reportedly saved nearly two dozen children worldwide from abusive situations.

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Mass shooting at California high school
> Date: Nov. 14

Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Berhow came to school the morning of Thursday, Nov. 14 and pulled out a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Berhow killed two of his classmates and injured three others before turning the gun on himself. He died from the self-inflicted wound the following day. The mass shooting is one of hundreds that were carried out in 2019.

Former CIA agent sentenced 19 years for China espionage
> Date: Nov. 22

Last year, former CIA agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee was charged with conspiracy to spy on behalf of the Chinese government. Lee is believed to have received $840,000 from Chinese intelligence officials, and while Lee admitted to conspiring, he maintains that he never actually revealed any secrets. In November 2019, Lee was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors criminal probe of opiate makers
> Date: Nov. 26

In September, pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma reached a multibillion-dollar settlement with thousands of cities, counties, and tribes, as well as 23 states for its role in the opioid crisis. The settlement is the first of its kind. Under the deal, the company will file for bankruptcy and restructure with its OxyContin proceeds going to victims of the opioid addiction epidemic.

Of the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than two-thirds involved an opioid. Such drug-related deaths were six times more common in 2017 than in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Pensacola army base shooting
> Date: Dec. 6

In early December 2019, Second Lieutenant Mohammad Alshamrani of the Royal Saudi Air Force opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola with a legally purchased 9 mm handgun, killing three and injuring eight others. The FBI dispatched 80 agents to investigate the shooting and released a statement saying investigators were treating it as an act of terrorism. Through a series of tweets posted before the killing, the shooter reportedly quoted Osama bin Laden and called the United States evil.

GoFundMe scam
> Date: Dec. 6

A feel-good story soured after a man was found guilty of scamming more than 14,000 people out of $400,000 that was raised to help a homeless man. Mark D’Amico, the mastermind of the scheme, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree misapplication of entrusted property in Burlington County, New Jersey, and agreed to serve a five-year term in a New Jersey state prison.

D’Amico and girlfriend Katelyn McClure started the GoFundMe page after they claimed a homeless man named Johnny Bobbitt Jr. supposedly gave them his last $20 to pay for gas after they ran out of gasoline on Interstate 95. For his role in the scam, Bobbitt was paid $75,000 and D’Amico and McClure spent the rest of the money on a BMW, a trip to Las Vegas, and designer handbags. McClure pleaded guilty in April to second-degree theft by deception in a plea agreement and agreed to a four-year prison term. Bobbitt pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft by deception and was placed in a program for drug treatment.

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