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ID Thief Tries To Get Witnesses Whacked
adeelarshad82 writes "Pavel Valkovich of Sherman Oaks, CA has pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder, admitting that he attempted to hire hit-men to kill witnesses working with Federal authorities in their investigation of Valkovich's ID theft activities and subsequent crimes. According to the Justice Department: '...Valkovich and others had stolen personal identifying information and used that information to transfer funds from victims' bank accounts to PayPal accounts.'"
Two things amaze me:
One, that you can get more jail time for moving 440,000 from one DB column to another than for trying to have someone killed.
Two, that actual bankers that committed fraud to the tune of trillions were punished by (at most) being handsomely paid off and sentenced to go golfing for the rest of their lives.
What a strange "justice" system we've created for ourselves.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Trying to hire a hitman via classifieds is so last year
...his identity must have been stolen!
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer piece of pond scum.
Sure, requiring you to go to a licensed notary and have a credit card application notarized might not make it so easy to get credit, but it would also make it harder to get credit in your name.
The banks and credit card companies could do this, but it's more profitable to let people steal your identity and then just jack up fees and interest rates to cover the losses.
wow, f'ng wow
Any thinking person would have realized when he was transferred to the second institution after trying to have a witness whacked that he was going to be placed in a cell with an informant. I mean, duh.
A minor setback, really--- clearly he's now just in need of a fourth person willing to commit three murders for hire...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Those two terms have something in common -- both were trumped up by people with something to hide and would rather misdirect the public about what is going on.
There is no theft of copyright unless someone somehow convinces the registry office that he is the author and owner of the material. It is "infringement" but that word doesn't sound bad or terrible enough to get people excited.
And there is no "Identity theft" either... well, there is when someone is actively out there claiming to be someone else while that someone else is thereafter doubted as to who he is. Not sure that actually happens though. What identity theft really is is fraud perpetrated against banks and other institutions who created a system by which a person is identified by numbers that are shared frequently and openly. I hesitate to call them secret numbers since every time you participate in the system, you surrender nearly all of your personal identification numbers. The system that has been created is EXTREMELY weak and easy to game. It is also extremely easy and inexpensive for banks, financial institutions and shops to use in doing business. And just like the "credit score" system created by the same people, it puts the burden on the individuals rather than on the people who created and use the systems to their advantage every day.
Seriously, what a great system? They collect all of the advantages, and all disadvantages are shifted to individuals!
Banker says, "no, I was not harmed by this guy who fraudulently stole money from my bank...it was the poor schmuck whose bank account information was used! And I'll tell you something else! I'm holding that poor schmuck responsible for my incompetent system!"
Shop keeper says, "no, I was not harmed by this guy who fraudulently stole property from my store... it was the poor schmuck whose credit card numbers or credit information was used in making the purchase... and I'll tell you something else, I'm holding the poor schmuck responsible for paying the bill! And if he doesn't, I'll file bad credit reports and in some states, file in court to have a judgement against him too!"
The weaknesses of the system are clear and obvious. It is also clear and obvious who is being stolen from. By changing the name from fraud to identity theft, they are attempting to make it less clear and obvious who the victim is.
and the case was a triple murder, drug related, in upper manhattan. this was being tried at the downtown manhattan courthouse
i was winnowed down to the final 20, almost an alternate juror. what surprised me was all of this personal identifying information was being disclosed, about me and a whole bunch of other people, while the defendant, ostensibly a triple murdering drug dealer, with obvious possible ties to organized crime, was sitting there hearing all of this personally identifying info about people who were going to judge him, and he was even taking notes. they were even asking me and others questions about our siblings and what they did (maybe they were asking that because the defendant killed a sibling? i never heard any further details of the crime after i was weaned out and put back in the snooze room)
so why is it, in the us court system at least, that the identity of witnesses and jurors is given so much free play with sleaze bag defendants who usually have no problem ordering hits for all sorts of reasons, not least of which the desire to avoid jail time. surely there can be more anonymity, no? i don't understand the status quo
ps:
notice to anyone who wants to get off jury duty:
when they ask you if you would consider other people's opinion when making up your mind, or if you would make up your mind on your own, answer (in my case honestly), that you wouldn't care what other people on the jury thought, that you would make up your mind on your own... booted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I had my credit locked. I was pleasantly surprised when I signed up to Dish Network, and they denied me because they couldn't even check my credit score. So at least I know it's working.
An important part of the US court system is to be very open in general. That's why there are specific things in the law like the right to confront your accuser. Well another important part is for your defense team, of which you as the defendant are part, to make sure the jury is truly an unbiased group of your peers. It would invite abuse to have a system where the jurors were a secret group that the defense never got to see.
Yes, it does pose the risk of a defendant attempting to retaliate against jurors, however that is actually extremely rare. It also rarely works out, you'll note that this asshat is now doing more time because of it. There are always tradeoffs, there is no perfect way of doing things and in the US system, transparency of the jury is more important than protecting their identities.
Also, in general you can speak to the judge privately if an answer is something you aren't willing to make in open court. You can request to approach the bench and talk to them about your concern.
that's useful information for any prospective juror that i've never heard before: approach the bench with your answer in private. of course the lawyers will approach the bench with you, but then you only have to worry about a scumbag defense lawyer who would share private info with a scumbag defendant, which is even more rare than the cases of juror retaliation you rightfully cite as rare
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Which bankers committed trillions of dollars of fraud? I've not heard of this. There have been some billion dollar schemes, Bernard Madoff would be a good example, however he didn't get paid off, he received a 150 year prison sentence for it.
Or are you generally ignorantly ranting about the recent stock market crash? Here's news for you: It wasn't fraud. Fraud has a legal definition, and what Madoff did was fraud. People going hog wild and speculating on stocks, bonds, commodities, whatever is NOT fraud. It's not smart to do, but it is not illegal.
Also let's please drop the "Oh those evil bankers!" crap. This mess has no one party responsible, there is blame at all levels. Government regulators are to blame because they failed to keep an eye on this and keep things from getting out of hand. Investment firms are to blame for investing too readily in something that was clearly growing well past any reasonable rate. Banks are to blame for making loans that were far too high a risk. And people are to blame, for walking eyes wide shut in to this situation, for taking loans they can't afford, for investing in a massive bubble.
Let's not pretend like "the little guy" is innocent here. None of this shit would have happened had normal people not been so eager to get in on this and so willfully oblivious to the risks. Nobody made people take loans they clearly couldn't afford, nobody forced them to refinance all their equity out of their houses to spend on consumables. They chose to do it, and the consequences have been far reaching indeed. However they can't now cry and blame it all on "the bankers." Yep, banks certainly have a big share of responsibility, but so do you, the individual that got yourself in that situation. You did NOT have to do that, you could have been smart about it but you weren't.
The problem is being responsible wasn't as much fun. It meant keeping a smaller, older house, and not getting all kinds of new toys. Ya well, that was the right answer.
So knock it off already.
He who owns the system makes the rules. Where's the news?
Bill Moyers said in a speech (which you can download off freepress.org; sorry I can't remember which or where, but search around if you're really paranoid that I'm lying), as best as I can remember relaying the words of someone else:
"'Real News' is the things we need to know to keep our freedoms."
To keep our freedom, our right to property, we must know that it is being eroded.
Even if it hasn't changed, it's still Real News. Heck, even if the tree of liberty hasn't lost its need to be periodically watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants, if people have forgotten this lesson (or forgotten how to apply it), that knowledge is Real News.
And, sadly, I see too little of that kind of Real News in the news.
To those interested, and who know someone in the prison where Pavel Valkovich will end up; just cough up a Franklin note to your buddy in prison and he can solicit all the special attention Valkovich can handle and more. Money and cigarettes go a long way in prison and your prison buddy could use some leverage cash.
Why not throw ol' Pavel a special party? With a name like Valkovich the Aryan brotherhood won't take care of him and he isn't black or hispanic so there isn't anyone to be his friend. My guess is he is pretty well f**ked when he makes it to General Population and you can't live in Punk City forever. Lol, he could get so turned out he will wear a diaper catch all for the rest of his life. Probably won't need any money.
Vivid yet likely scenarios.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Murder gets you extremely heavy time. Attempted murder doesn't get you as much.
Unless you're driving your car and hit a cyclist. That generally gets you nothing at all.
Please help metamoderate.
Check the URL again.
and always will be imperfect. the problem is in seeing the imperfections, as you do, in spite of the larger major part of the system that does actually work. expecting perfection before you will contribute to the system is a permanent impossibility, and merely demonstrates a lack of understanding of social reality on your part
the best that can be done to make the system better is that its citizens believe in it and work for a better system. the system you have is merely a reflection of the failures and problems of the society it comes from
in this regard, if the system has any problems, one of the reasons it fails is due to a reflection of the segment of the public it serves that demonstrates a profound lack of faith and a disturbing massive jumping to radically negative conclusions. endemic weakness of character such as this on a large enough scale will unavoidably affect the system in some way or another. and therefore be a self-reinforcing phenomenon with negative consequences for all of us, including citizens of good character
it is because of ignorants in the system that the system will fail us. ignorants who think much like you do. so clean up your own obvious large mental failures before criticizing that of your government, because i want the system to improve to. and i know the best way to do that is to clean up the idiocy in the society around me, some of which the system is composed
if the system has a problem, it is because of people with character weakness like your comment demonstrates
you're the problem, fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Attempted murder?!?! What is that? Do they give out Oscars for Attempted Acting?!?
Lovely headline.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
get 20 years...
attempt bank fraud get 30...
crazy world
How is this 'idle'? He tried to f.....g kill people!
It's "idle" because he failed, and he wasn't even up against a British secret agent. My loyal henchmen are having a good laugh about this right now (their union insisted I let them read Slashdot on their breaks from building my death ray).
Blank until
Why would you want to release someone who shows poor impulse control before murdering someone earlier than someone who thought about
it before murdering someone. It's easy to see that someone who thought first might:
a. think before doing it again
b. be reachable with arguments that they shouldn't do it (again)
c. have been in a special situation which is unlikely to happen again
while the person with poor impulse control might murder again at any time. No reason or logic will stop them.
So tell me why "premediated" has a higher penalty?
(Perhaps this is just the war mongers trying to keep a monopoly?)
Jack Thomson is that you?!!?
seriously? wtf? people are crazy
printed directories
I feel that everyone should read this post.
I usually avoid replying because honestly, most people have no clue about macro or micro economics. Your reply is spot on. I remember loan agents throwing loan docs at me with nothing more than a verbal promise of what I earned. They were willing to give me $750,000 on my word (and home's deed), yet Chase was jacking my rates to 35% if a payment was processed on the due date (which I canceled). Both were huge red flags in my book and both avoided, thankfully. It's funny how easy it is to forget that before the whole collapse there were, I believe on both sides of the isle, people saying the mortgage process/regulatory oversight was broken.
I used to think that "murder in the large", i.e. genocide as well as large amounts of drug smuggling/dealing was the worst possible crime, but last year I heard about something worse:
Manufacturing fake drugs with just enough of the real active ingredient that it will show up on a gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer, along with large doses of regular cold medications like pseudo-ephedrine which will provide short-term relief.
Google has lots of relevant links for "fake drugs multi-resistant bacteria", close to the top is this one:
Counterfeit drugs: A Growing Global Health Crisis
This is probably the single most effective method to generate more multi-resistent bacteria strains, which means that the people behind the scam will keep on killing more and more people as time goes by.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Dead witnesses or not surely Pavel would still be convicted of the identity theft and fraud charges. He transferred peoples money into paypal accounts for gods sake. There would be a paper trail a mile long all pointing directly to Pavel's pocket. Camping
Is that considered murder?
or what if a person who had his Identity stolen attempts suicide? Should that be consdered attempted murder?
I truely beleive the sentences against people convicted of Identity Theft are to lite. They should carry harsh sentences, comparable to any physical harm sentences handed out.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time