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Jim Gordon, the prolific session drummer and convicted murderer who played with some of rock’s most famed artists — including the Beach Boys, George Harrison and Eric Clapton, whose classic “Layla” he’s credited with co-writing — before he was sentenced to prison for killing his mother, died Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. He was 77.His death was confirmed by a publicist, Bob Merlis, who said Gordon died of natural causes “after a long incarceration and lifelong battle with mental illness.”A Los…

WALTERBORO, S.C. —  Disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh has been convicted of murder in the 2021 shootings of his wife and son.When closing arguments wrapped up, the judge turned Murdaugh’s fate over to jurors after giving them his final instructions, and they headed to their jury room to begin deliberations.Attorney Jim Griffin gave the defense’s closing, emphasizing Murdaugh’s main point — that investigators focused solely on him and conducted the investigation so poorly that any evidence pointing to someone…

Two brothers who crashed a wedding reception and beat the groom to death in Chino in 2019 were convicted in February of second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, prosecutors announced Tuesday. San Bernardino County prosecutors said Rony Castaneda, 31, and Josue Castaneda, 22, didn’t know the groom or his wife but lived nearby and likely decided to crash the couple’s reception after they heard the party unfolding at a home in Chino on Dec. 14, 2019. Earlier that day, 30-year-old Joe Melgoza and Esther were…

PARIS —  A court in Paris convicted Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred of rape and assault charges Friday and sentenced him to six years in prison. The 37-year-old Lamjarred, who is famous on the Arab pop music scene, had been on trial on charges of aggravated rape and assault since Monday. A six-member jury and three magistrates spent seven hours deliberating before the singer was found guilty of raping a French woman at a luxury hotel on the Champs-Elysees in October 2016 while he was under the influence of alcohol and…

Nipsey Hussle’s convicted killer will likely spend decades behind bars.According to the Associated Press, Eric Holder Jr. was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison on Wednesday for the 2019 murder of Nipsey, a 33-year-old rapper who was fatally shot outside his clothing store in South Los Angeles. The sentencing was announced less than a year after Holder was found guilty of first-degree murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter. He was also convicted on two counts of assault with a firearm and two counts of attempted…

A federal judge today handed down the lightest possible sentence in the U.S. government’s case against University of Kansas (KU), Lawrence, chemical engineer Franklin Tao. The decision is the latest rejection by U.S. courts of the government’s attempt to prosecute Chinese-born scientists for lapses in reporting their research interactions with China. U.S. District Court Senior Judge Julie Robinson imposed no jail time and no fine for Tao in sentencing him for…

Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk: An Ohio man pleads guilty to stealing 712+ bitcoins seized by the IRS in a case against his brother, who was convicted of running money laundering service Helix — Gary Harmon, brother of Helix CEO Larry Harmon, stole his brother's forfeited crypto right out from under the IRS's nose, and spent it extravagantly. Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk: An Ohio man pleads guilty to stealing 712+ bitcoins seized by the IRS in a case against his brother, who was convicted of running money…

Freeman's lawyer, Mark Sisti, said Freeman actually warned people of scams and he helped businesses in the community. A New Hampshire man was convicted Thursday of running an unlicensed bitcoin exchange business and laundering over $10 million in proceeds of romance scams and other internet frauds following a two-week federal trial. Prosecutors said Ian Freeman “created a business that catered to fraudsters" by failing to register his business with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as required by law,…

A Los Angeles jury on Friday found rapper Tory Lanez guilty of three felonies in the 2020 shooting of hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion that left her wounded with bullet fragments in her feet. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for one day before convicting the 30-year-old Canadian rapper, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. The counts could lead to…

Hello, it’s Tuesday, Dec. 20, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:TOP STORIES Harvey Weinstein convicted of rapeA Los Angeles jury found Harvey Weinstein guilty of raping a woman, delivering a verdict that further condemns the disgraced movie titan whose treatment of women helped spur the #MeToo movement.The decision all but assures that Weinstein, who is 70, in poor health and serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York for other rapes, will spend the rest of his life behind bars. He is scheduled to be…