A white woman from Florida who he fatally shot his black neighbor through her front door during an ongoing dispute over a neighbor’s noisy children, she faces a manslaughter conviction on Monday.

Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August of killing 35-year-old Ajike “AJ” Owens with a single shot from her .380-caliber handgun in June 2023. Lorincz faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in state prison due to use of a firearm.

The shooting was the culmination of a long-running dispute between two neighbors over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area at each of their homes in Ocala, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Orlando.

Prosecutors said Owens got here to Lorincz’s home after her children complained that she had thrown roller skates and an umbrella at them, which Lorincz denied. Testimony at trial showed that Owens, a mother of 4 young children, banged on Lorincz’s door and screamed, leading Lorincz to take care of that he acted in self-defense and shot his neighbor.

Lorincz told detectives this in a videotaped interview she feared for her life. She also said she was bullied for many of the three years she lived in the neighborhood.

“I thought I was in immediate danger,” she said.

However, the judges disagreed with her self-defense claims.

Owens’ family pushed for the utmost prison sentence after Lorincz was convicted by an all-white jury.

“While we are pained by the loss of Ajike, we hope that justice will prevail and that the court will give Susan Lorincz the maximum sentence for her actions,” Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said in an emailed statement ahead of Monday’s sentencing. “Ajike’s legacy will live on through her children, and we will continue to fight for justice.”

Lorincz’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Amanda Sizemore, had argued for a lighter sentence – an unspecified sentence of lower than 11.5 years in prison, which is the minimum for her crime under state guidelines. Sizemore said in court documents that there are several reasons to justify the downward departure, including a mental disorder, and claims that Owens was the aggressor and was under “extreme duress” throughout the confrontation.

There were protests in Ocala’s Black community that prosecutors had been waiting for for weeks accuse Lorincz of unintentional manslaughterwhich is lower than second-degree murder, which carries a potential sentence of life in prison. Marion County, which incorporates Ocala, is about 12% black, in accordance with census data.

Several more plaintiffs got here forward this week accusing rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual abuse. On November 19, three men and two women filed separate complaints against the Bad Boy Records founder through Tony Buzbee, a lawyer who previously said he would represent greater than 100 clients accusing Combs of misconduct.

“For years, Combs and his companies have engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of violence against women, men and minors,” the entire complaints read: in keeping with People magazine. “This abuse was at times verbal, emotional, physical and sexual. As part of his pattern of molestation, Combs manipulated both men and women into participating in highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity, with both prostitutes and unsuspecting partygoers.”

The new plaintiffs include an unidentified man who claims the rapper sexually assaulted him when he was 39 years old. At a house party in New York in 2022, the plaintiff alleged that he was given a drink that left him feeling disoriented and uncontrolled. his body, which ultimately caused him to lose consciousness.

When he regained consciousness, he recalls being in a “dark bedroom with black walls, on a bed with black sheets”, where he realized that Combs was “sodomizing him”. The plaintiff claims he fought with the rapper before leaving the party.

Other male plaintiffs, including an unnamed former actor, remember feeling disoriented, passing out and waking up as Combs sexually assaulted them. With allegations dating back to 2001, all five complaints said Combs’ alleged abuse was “shockingly typical” since the star believed he was “above the law.”

“That said, Mr. Combs vehemently and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused anyone, including minors,” attorney Erica Wolff added in a press release. “He looks forward to proving his innocence and defending himself in court where the truth will be determined by evidence, not speculation.”

Combs is currently in federal custody awaiting trial on criminal charges including sex trafficking and racketeering. The star’s trial is scheduled to happen in May 2025.

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Joanna Smith-Griffin, 33, CEO of startup AllHere Education, Inc. dealing with AI education accused of defrauding investors.

The Southern District of New York prosecuted Smith-Griffin securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The grand jury indictment alleged that Smith-Griffin lied concerning the education platform’s funds and posed as a financial consultant to supply false information to investors. While acting as a financial consultant for AllHere Education, Smith-Griffin is accused of falsifying the corporate’s financial records mislead potential investors and inflate the worth of her company and its revenues.

AllHere Education is an AI-powered learning platform utilized in primary and secondary schools. Smith-Griffin has had little success integrating the K-12 platform into individual school districts in California and Georgia. However, the principal didn’t secure long-term contracts with school districts. She used these short-term partnerships to misrepresent to investors the reach and financial success of AllHere Education.

Smith-Griffin told potential AllHere investors that AllHere generated about $3.7 million in revenue in 2020, about $2.5 million in money and has major school district customers similar to New York City Department of Education (“NYC DOE”) and Atlanta Public Schools. In fact, AllHere generated roughly $11,000 in revenue in 2020, had roughly $494,000 in money, and had no contracts with many of the clients it represented, including the NYC DOE and Atlanta Public Schools.

Smith-Griffin continued to boost capital to support the startup, raising one other $10 million in funding. When the corporate collapsed financially, Smith-Griffin allegedly used the money injection to pay for an extravagant three-day wedding in Florida and a residence in North Carolina.

FBI Deputy Director James E. Dennehy commented on Smith-Griffin’s decision to prioritize her personal aspirations over the needs of an educational platform.

“Her alleged actions impacted the potential to improve the learning environment in core school districts by selfishly prioritizing personal expenses,” he said.

Smith-Griffin faces a compulsory two years in prison for the identity theft charge and a maximum of 20 years for every fraud charge. AllHere Education is currently in Chapter 7 bankruptcy.