Alexander McCartney sentenced in U.K. court for "catfishing" thousands, including U.S. girl who died by suicide
CBSN
A Northern Ireland man was sentenced Friday to a minimum of 20 years in prison after being found guilty by a U.K. court in what has been described as the biggest criminal "catfishing" case in the country. Alex McCartney, 26, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of manslaughter in a Northern Ireland court after a young American girl who was among the thousands of alleged victims he blackmailed online died by suicide.
McCartney had admitted to a total of 185 charges involving 70 child victims in court — including blackmail, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and producing and distributing indecent images of children. He was also held culpable for the death of 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas in West Virginia, according to the U.K.'s Press Association news agency.
Thomas, who lived in West Virginia with her mother, father and siblings, died of suicide in May 2018. During her online interactions with McCartney, authorties say he attempted to coerce her into sending graphic images involving a younger sibling.
Kazan, Russia — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday presided at the closing session of a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, praising its role as a counterbalance to what he called the West's "perverse methods." The three-day summit in the city of Kazan covered the deepening of financial cooperation, including the development of alternatives to Western-dominated payment systems, efforts to settle regional conflicts and expansion of the BRICS group of nations.
Turkey launched airstrikes late Wednesday in Kurdish-held parts of Syria and Iraq in retaliation for a deadly attack at a state-owned defense manufacturer in Ankara that saw at least two attackers kill four people and wound more than a dozen others.
Sri Lanka deployed troops and increased police patrols around a Jewish community center in a popular surfing town on Wednesday after the U.S. embassy warned American citizens of a possible attack on popular tourist sites in the area.
Gisele Pelicot, the woman at the center of the mass-rape trial that's shocked her own country of France and the world, told her husband in court on Wednesday that she still "did not understand why" he had drugged and raped her for nearly a decade, along with dozens of other men he invited into their home.
Toronto — Police in eastern Canada are investigating the death of a 19-year-old woman who was found inside a walk-in oven at a Walmart store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Authorities received a call reporting a death Saturday night, prompting the evacuation of the store. The deceased woman, a Walmart employee, was found inside the walk-in oven in the store's bakery department.
Mexican troops shot dead 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa cartel after they came under attack in the northwestern state, the ministry of defense said Tuesday.
French-Polish director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States decades ago after admitting to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old, will no longer face trial over an alleged assault of another minor after reaching a settlement, his lawyer said Tuesday.
An ambulance service in Australia had to come to the rescue of a woman who "got herself in a spot of bother earlier this month" when she became wedged between two boulders while trying to recover her dropped cell phone. Matilda Campbell slipped into a 10-foot-deep crevice in the region's Hunter Valley and spent about seven hours stuck between the massive rocks before rescuers finally freed her with just cuts and scrapes, officials said.
Hundreds gathered Monday to mourn Catholic priest Marcelo Pérez, an activist for Indigenous peoples and farm laborers who was killed in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas.
Jerusalem — Israeli police on Monday said they had arrested seven Israeli citizens accused of being a spy network gathering information on Israel's military bases and energy infrastructure for Iranian intelligence.
Israel's war with Iran-backed Hezbollah escalates as IDF bombs financial institutions across Lebanon
A fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes started pounding locations across Lebanon on Sunday night, some striking dangerously close to Lebanon's only international airport. Israel had said it would launch a widescale assault on a banking institution it regards as Hezbollah's de-facto financial arm, the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association.