On Q Professional Investigations

Starting January, you may have a little trouble getting into a federal building – and you may eventually face some added headaches at airport security.

That’s because effective Jan. 30, 2017, Pennsylvania-issued driver’s licenses and IDs will be out of compliance with new federal requirements.

The federal Department of Homeland Security has notified Pennsylvania that state residents will face new restrictions when they attempt to enter federal facilities in January as a result of the failure of those state-issued documents to meet federal so-called REAL ID requirements.

Effective Jan. 30, Pennsylvania residents will need an alternative, secure form of identification to gain admittance to all federal facilities, military bases and nuclear power plants. The only exception is admittance to federal facilities for the purpose of applying for or receiving federal benefits. Each federal agency determines which secure identification it will accept.

Pennsylvania is prohibited from developing new identification by the state’s 2012 Act 38, which restricts the commonwealth from participation in the Real ID Act. Pennsylvania is one of about two dozen states that haven’t complied with the federal guideline.

The Real ID Act, passed in 2013, is intended to improve accuracy of state-issued identification documents to help inhibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.

The law has been phased in over three years. The last phase, which applies to boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft, is supposed to be enforced “no sooner than 2016,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s web site.

The Department of Homeland Security had been granting states not in compliance a series of extensions. In a letter dated Oct. 11, the department informed PennDOT that no further extensions will be granted unless there are new developments or information provided on why standards remain unmet and the reasons for continued noncompliance.

DHS also pointed out that if Pennsylvania does not come into compliance by Jan. 22, 2018 (or is not granted an extension), Pennsylvania residents will need to present an alternative form of identification acceptable to the Transportation Security Administration to board a commercial flight.

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UNITED NATIONS - Responding to increasing attacks on airports and aircraft, the U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously approved its first-ever resolution to address extremist threats to civil aviation and urge more security.

The U.N.’s most powerful body called for stepped-up screening and security checks at airports worldwide to “detect and deter terrorist attacks.” And it called on all countries to tighten security at airport buildings, share information about possible threats, and provide advance passenger lists so governments are aware of their transit or attempted entry.

“The Security Council has delivered a resounding call to action for the international community,” said the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. “This is the first U.N. Security Council resolution ever to focus on the threats by terrorists to civil aviation and it demonstrates our joint resolve to protect our citizens from an escalating danger.”

The resolution reflected growing global anxiety following attacks on airplanes and airports from Ukraine, Egypt and Somalia to Brussels and Istanbul.

While aviation security has improved, Johnson said the recent tragedies demonstrate “the urgency of our task” and the dangers posed by “terrorists who probe relentlessly the chinks in our collective armor.”

The British-drafted resolution expresses the council’s concern “that terrorist groups continue to view civil aviation as an attractive target, with the aim of causing substantial loss of life, economic damage” and air links between countries.

Fang Liu, Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization, told the council before the vote that there are more than 100,000 daily flights carrying 10 million travelers, which adds up to 3.5 billion passengers per year plus “one-third of the world’s trade by value” carried by planes.

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OAK PARK, Mich. (WJBK) - For the second time in a year, a clerk in the city of Oak Park is charged with embezzling taxpayer money.

The first time an Oak Park official stole from the city, the hustle ran for two years, but the second official accused of trying her luck wasn’t lucky at all. Officials say they foiled her caper in less than 24 hours.

“We instituted a whole variety of layers and additions of security,” said Erik Tungate, Oak Park city manager. “As a result of that, we just recently now identified what I would define as a counterfeiting operation.”

According to police, the culprit in this case is Shemikia Latoya-Renee Terry, a clerk in Oak Park’s Treasury Department.

Tungate says Terry was hired just before Stephanie Sumner was caught chiseling taxpayers out of more than $400,000. She funneled the dough to her husband, Michael, by sending real checks to phony companies. The felonious couple recently copped to embezzlement charges.

But Tungate says Terry was apparently not keeping up with current events because the city was, as a result, now keeping close tabs.

“The issue was caught the day after it happened. and we’re dealing with it now,” Tungate said.

Tungate says Terry was responsible for depositing cash that residents pay the city for all kinds of services.

“The water department, recreation, the library, you name it,” he said.

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Security lines at O’Hare International Airport have become dramatically shorter — at least for the time being — in the wake of TSA staff increases locally and this week’s ouster of the agency’s head of security.

One airline official said Tuesday that waits were down to 15 minutes at O’Hare after the Transportation Security Administration faced heavy criticism last week for long lines at the nation’s airports. Waits of more than two hours May 14 at O’Hare caused 450 people to miss their flights and dozens to sleep overnight at the airport.

TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger came Friday to Chicago to meet with local officials and expressed regret for the problem, which the agency has blamed on a staffing shortage combined with higher passenger numbers. TSA moved 100 part-time officers at Chicago airports to full-time status last week and brought in a new management team and four new canine units, which TSA officials say helped speed lines by sniffing passengers for explosives.

Another 58 TSA officers are expected to come to Chicago airports in the coming month.

This week, the TSA replaced its former head of security, Kelly Hoggan, who according to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform received more than $90,000 in bonuses from 2013 to late 2014.

A memo obtained by the Chicago Tribune sent by Neffenger on Monday does not name Hoggan, but does name his temporary replacement, Darby LaJoye. Neffenger called LaJoye an experienced federal security director with successful stints at two of the nation’s largest airports, Los Angeles International Airport in California and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

“His strong leadership and proven operational expertise have driven a renewed agency-wide focus on security effectiveness,” Neffenger said.

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Last Tuesday, a prisoner walked out of the Anchorage jail a free man. Unremarkable, except it was five months after his sentence ended.

By the Department of Corrections’ own admission, the man — who the department would not name — spent nearly an extra six months incarcerated because of a clerical error in the computation of his complicated sentence.

His case is an extreme example of a widespread and insidious problem in Alaska’s criminal justice system.

Over the past five years, DOC has kept — or would have kept if the errors hadn’t been discovered by state investigators — more than 100 inmates in jail for days, weeks and even months after their sentences expired because of clerical errors, an analysis of data from the state ombudsman’s office shows.

That number, attorneys and investigators agree, is probably a major under count. It represents only inmates who’ve completed a lengthy formal process with the Alaska Office of the Ombudsman.

For every prisoner who complains, there are more who just sit a few extra days in jail, said Bethel attorney Jim Valcarce. He consistently fields two to three calls per month from people, almost all in rural Alaska jails, who say they’ve been detained for longer than their sentence.

“I’ve seen it a few days and I’ve seen it as long as a month,” he said.

Those people are missing out on work, family life, subsistence activities, holidays, he says. They are missing out on their lives.

“I can’t think of anything worse, more unfair, than someone who is sitting in jail for no reason. That’s a miscarriage of justice.”

Such errors break one of the foundational contracts of the justice system: That people should go free once they’ve served their time. At the same time, sentence miscalculations cost the already cash-strapped state hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The prisoner released Tuesday alone would have cost the state at least $23,000 in unnecessary incarceration.

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A group of 51 suburban families filed a federal lawsuit against their Illinois school district, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday, alleging that the district is violating students’ privacy and safety by allowing transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify.

Northwest suburban Township High School District 211 was forced to do so by the Department of Education, which charged that not accommodating the locker room choice of one transgender student who filed a complaint with the federal agency was a violation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

But the lawsuit filed by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Thomas More Society, on behalf of the 73 parents and 63 students, maintains that the 1972 federal law actually authorizes schools to retain single-sex restrooms and locker rooms, and Title IX is being unlawfully redefined by the Department of Education, which has overstepped into Congress’ purview in broadening its interpretation.

“Protecting students from inappropriate exposure to the opposite sex is not only perfectly legal, it’s a school district’s duty,” said Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom.

“Allowing boys into girls’ locker rooms, a setting where girls are often partially or fully unclothed, is a blatant violation of student privacy.

The school district should rescind its privacy-violating policies, and the court should order the Department of Education to stop bullying school districts with falsehoods about what federal law requires.”

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NEWARK N.J. – Two New York men who allegedly defrauded credit card companies of hundreds of thousands of dollars are expected to appear in court later today, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Nikolay Krechet, 45, of Queens, New York, and James Olla, 24, of Brooklyn, New York, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud. They were originally charged by complaint on May 28, 2015, and indicted by a federal grand jury on Feb. 18, 2016. They both arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in Newark federal court and entered pleas of not guilty.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

From January 2014 to August 2015, Krechet, Olla, and others procured stolen information related to credit cards belonging to various individuals, including a victim living in New Jersey. Using this stolen information, the conspirators obtained gift cards from various retailers and then either sold the cards or used them to purchase goods, which they then sold.

Each count of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud carries a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Timothy Gallagher; the U.S. Secret Service, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Kenneth Pleasant; and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the director of Assistant Inspector in Charge James R. Buthorn, with the investigation.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Svetlana M. Eisenberg of the General Crimes Unit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Devlin of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Unit.

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CHICAGO (WLS) — Some spring break travelers are learning the hard way that getting through airport security is taking longer than ever.

United warned customers they could stand in line for up to two hours. And American Airlines is publicly criticizing the Transportation Safety Administration for lines that cause passengers to miss flights.

People as far as the eye can see. There’s a line just to get into the line for the security maze at O’Hare.

“This feels like I’m in Disney World!” traveler Rich Frantz laughed.

People are now taking to Twitter and other social media sights to vent.

“The TSA line at Terminal 3 at O’Hare for American Air outside of the roped off lines. EVERYONE will miss their flight,” Stephanie Pratt posted.

The airlines are taking notice.

“The TSA has a duty to screen passengers and bags in an efficient manner, and that’s not being done right now,” said Leslie Scott, American Airlines spokesperson.

During the morning and late afternoon rush, American says wait times have reached an hour and a half at O’Hare.

One recent week saw more than 300 American customers miss their flights due to security delays. The TSA doesn’t release wait times at specific airports.

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(CNN)-Smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border have become so sophisticated in moving drugs that one “super tunnel” raided this week featured a railway.

The tunnel stretched the length of eight football fields, from a Tijuana warehouse to a San Diego warehouse, and had a rail system, lighting, electricity, and metal beams to prevent a cave-in.

Authorities confiscated at least 12 tons of marijuana with a street value of $6 million and arrested 22 people in San Diego and Tijuana in connection with the one of the largest tunnels uncovered in recent years.

“We see a super tunnel open for business once every year or so,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy of Southern California said in a statement. “Just when traffickers think they’re ready to move, we put them out of business.”

The newly constructed tunnel was discovered as part of a six-month investigation that began last May and involved an undercover agent who helped transport buckets filled with dirt from the tunnel warehouse and thThe San Diego end of the tunnel is located just a half-mile from the Otay Mesa border crossing.

On Wednesday, the defendants told the undercover agent about moving loads of marijuana from the tunnel warehouse to another warehouse. Authorities believe this would have been the first time that a significant amount of drugs would have been moved through the tunnel.

But by Wednesday night, authorities seized control of the “sophisticated cross-border super tunnel,” authorities said in a press release.

The tunnel is the tenth large-scale drug smuggling tunnel discovered in the San Diego area since 2006. In all, authorities have found more than 75 cross-border smuggling tunnels, mostly in California and Arizona, prosecutors said.

Man smuggles cocaine between U.S. and Mexico through underwater tunnel offered to transport and store drugs for the defendants, authorities said.

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Richard Rosario has spent two decades behind bars, insisting for every one of those years that 13 alibi witnesses could prove he was innocent of a 1996 New York City murder.

On Tuesday, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office told NBC News it intends to ask a judge to throw out Rosario’s conviction.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark confirmed that the DA will move to vacate the conviction and ask that Rosario be released from prison “after a review by her office determined that he did not receive a fair trial.”

But, the statement added, “The charges against Mr. Rosario remain open pending further investigation.”

For years, former Bronx DA Robert Johnson stood by the conviction and appellate courts have consistently upheld it. But when Clark took office on January 1st of this year, she vowed that potential wrongful convictions would be a focus for her office, and began to look into the Rosario case.

The news comes just two days before the launch of “Conviction,” a streaming documentary series produced by Dateline NBC that is set to be released on NBCNews.com on Thursday. It documents a producer’s two-year investigation into the long and twisted history of Rosario’s case.

“We are very happy that Richard is going to be free, that he’s going to get a measure of justice after 20 years,” said Rosario’s attorneys, Rebecca Freedman and Glenn Garber of The Exoneration Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that investigates claims of innocence.

The Bronx DA’s office says it has begun the process of bringing Rosario from Eastern Correctional Facility in upstate New York, where he was housed, to the Bronx to appear in court. A law enforcement source tells NBC News that could happen by Wednesday.

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