NYC pawn shop owner pleads guilty to fencing Joe Burrow's stolen property
Dimitriy Nezhinskiy, 43, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy to receive stolen property — including expensive watches, jewelry and handbags — in a Brooklyn federal court, the Associated Press reported.
Burrow was among several high-profile athletes whose houses were targeted and robbed by what have been described by the FBI as South American theft crews.
4 Joe Burrow speaks onstage during Fanatics Fest NYC 2025 at Javits Center on June 21, 2025 in New York City.
Getty Images
The Cincinnati quarterback was playing a road game in Dallas in December when an estimated $300,000 worth of items were taken from his Ohio home.
Chiefs teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and NBA stars Luka Dončić and Mike Conley, were also victimized in the rash of robberies.
Three men were arrested and indicted in February by a federal grand jury in Cincinnati, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio, for multiple burglaries, including the one of Burrow's home.
4 Joe Burrow looks on before a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium on January 04, 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Getty Images
4 Joe Burrow is pictured during a Bengals practice May 13.
AP
No sentencing date has been set, but Nezhinskiy faces a maximum of five years in prison and restitution of roughly $2.5 million.
The legal New Jersey resident also potentially faces deportation to the country of Georgia, District Judge William F. Kuntz said.
'This defendant ran a black-market pipeline, buying stolen luxury goods from organized theft crews that targeted homes and businesses,' New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Friday in a statement. 'It was a deliberate operation that helped professional burglars prey on innocent people.'
4 Arraignment of Dimitriy Nezhinskiy and Juan Villar at Brooklyn Federal Court. The two are alleged to be running a fencing operation for a South American theft groups in the Manhattan Diamond District.
Gabriella Bass
Juan Villar, a 48-year-old Queens resident who ran the pawn shop with Nezhinskiy, had previously pleaded guilty in June to the same charge, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
'For more than five years, Dimitriy Nezhinskiy established a demand for stolen merchandise, which allowed South American Theft Groups to profit from repeated burglaries,' FBI assistant director in charge Christopher Raia said in a statement. 'His purchases perpetuated a ripple of criminality targeting residences and businesses across the country.'
Nezhinskiy and Villar have not been charged in connection with the burglaries, but in searches of the pawn shop and storage units owned by Nezhinskiy in New Jersey police found sports memorabilia, artwork and other luxury merchandise suspected to be stolen in the robberies.
They also uncovered power tools 'consistent with those commonly used in burglaries and opening safes,' according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
During the current season of the Netflix series 'Quarterback,' Burrow admitted that he recently canceled the purchase of a replica 'Batmobile' following the home invasion.
'I just get very uncomfortable,' Burrow said. 'My life is very public. That comes with the job, but there's certain parts of your life that are yours. Your house is one of those.'
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump administration releases FBI records on MLK Jr. despite his family's opposition
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination. The digital document dump includes more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration. In a lengthy statement released Monday, King's two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father's killing has been a 'captivating public curiosity for decades.' But the pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter and urged that the files 'be viewed within their full historical context.' The Kings got advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them. Those efforts continued even as the government granted public access. Among the documents are leads the FBI received after King's assassination and details of the CIA's fixation on King's pivot to international anti-war and anti-poverty movements in the years before he was killed. It was not immediately clear whether the documents shed new light on King's life, the civil rights movement or his murder. 'As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief — a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met — an absence our family has endured for over 57 years,' they wrote. 'We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief.' They also repeated the family's long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all. Bernice King was 5 years old when her father was killed at the age of 39. Martin III was 10. A statement from the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called the disclosure 'unprecedented' and said many of the records had been digitized for the first time. She praised President Trump for pushing the issue. Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with Robert F. Kennedy's and MLK's 1968 assassinations. The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April. The announcement from Gabbard's office included a statement from Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, who is an outspoken conservative and has broken from King's children on various topics — including the FBI files. Alveda King said she was 'grateful to President Trump' for his 'transparency.' Separately, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi's social media account featured a picture of the attorney general with Alveda King. Besides fulfilling Trump's order, the latest release means another alternative headline for the president as he tries to mollify supporters angry over his administration's handling of records concerning the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself behind bars while awaiting trial in 2019, during Trump's first presidency. Trump on Friday ordered the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony but stopped short of unsealing the entire case file. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday. But Bernice King later posted on her personal Instagram account a black-and-white photo of her father, looking annoyed, with the caption 'Now, do the Epstein files.' And some civil rights activists did not spare the president. 'Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice,' said the Rev. Al Sharpton. 'It's a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base.' The King Center, founded by King's widow and now led by Bernice King, reacted separately from what Bernice said jointly with her brother. The King Center statement framed the release as a distraction — but from more than short-term political controversy. 'It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad of pressing issues and injustices affecting the United States and the global society,' the King Center, linking those challenges to MLK's efforts. 'This righteous work should be our collective response to renewed attention on the assassination of a great purveyor of true peace.' The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until Justice Department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order early. Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents for new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the civil rights movement blossomed, opposed the release. The group, along with King's family, argued that the FBI illegally surveilled King and other civil rights figures, hoping to discredit them and their movement. It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested if not obsessed with King and others he considered radicals. FBI records released previously show how Hoover's bureau wiretapped King's telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to gather information, including evidence of King's extramarital affairs. 'He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,' the King children said in their statement. 'The intent ... was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King's reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement,' they continued. 'These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth — undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo.' The Kings said they 'support transparency and historical accountability' but 'object to any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods.' Opposition to King intensified even after the Civil Rights Movement compelled Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After those victories, King turned his attention to economic justice and international peace. He criticized rapacious capitalism and the Vietnam War. King asserted that political rights alone were not enough to ensure a just society. Many establishment figures like Hoover viewed King as a communist threat. King was assassinated as he was aiding striking sanitation workers in Memphis, part of his explicit turn toward economic justice. Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder. Ray later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998. King family members and others have long questioned whether Ray acted alone or if he was even involved. Coretta Scott King asked for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-Atty. Gen. Janet Reno ordered a new look. Reno's Justice Department said it 'found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.' In their latest statement, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III repeated their assertions that Ray was set up. They pointed to a 1999 civil case, brought by the King family, in which a Memphis jury concluded that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the target of a conspiracy. 'As we review these newly released files,' the Kings said, 'we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted.' Barrow writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Safiyah Riddle contributed to this report from Montgomery, Ala.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Ask the FBI': WH Throws Kash Patel Under the Bus on Epstein
The White House is desperately trying to move on by directing the ongoing uproar to the FBI as MAGA world clamors for the release of more Jeffrey Epstein files. When asked on Monday why the president does not just order the FBI to release the full Epstein files, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt left the ball in the bureau's court and claimed it was up to the attorney general. 'The president has said if the Department of Justice and the FBI want to move forward with releasing any further credible evidence, they should do so,' Leavitt responded. 'As to why they have or have not or will, you should ask the FBI.' However, it was the FBI and Justice Department that had released a memo earlier this month indicating no further information would be released, igniting the entire firestorm to begin with. That memo also claimed there was no Epstein client list, raising additional questions after Attorney General Pam Bondi previously indicated in February the list was on her desk for review, before later claiming she was referring to the files as a whole. When pressed on Monday whether the president would call on FBI Director Kash Patel to do more, Leavitt once again tried to distance the White House from decision making and said it was with the federal law enforcement agency. 'The president has told the attorney general and the FBI director to release any credible evidence that they find, and he also signaled to them over the weekend to move forward with unsealing the grand jury documents that were under seal by various judges across the country,' she claimed. It comes as the president has raged over new bombshell reports about his own relationship with Epstein including allegedly writing Epstein a birthday letter. In an attempt to move past the ongoing outrage, the president last week posted that he had asked Bondi to produce 'pertinent' grand jury testimony, but he also started to blast the entire case as the Epstein hoax and blame Democrats after previously saying on the campaign trail he would release the files. On Friday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to unseal the testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier as well as the grand jury testimony from the case against Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex-trafficking and remains in prison. However, grand jury testimony is typically shielded from the public to protect witnesses and victims. Legal experts have also warned that even if the grand jury testimony is unsealed by a judge, it would be extremely limited. It would not include key evidence such as witness statements, recordings or reveal co-conspirators. Far-right activists have been among some of the loudest voices calling for Epstein's clients to be revealed. Leavitt was asked about the frustration from MAGA world on Monday as the president has blasted his own supporters in recent days and urged them to move on from the Epstein case, but she rejected that he was losing support from his base. As the White House struggles to put distance between itself from backlash and accusations swirl that the Justice Department and FBI are attempting to protect the president by not releasing more, Republicans on Capitol Hill have moved to block Democrats' efforts to have the files released. On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson shut the door on the House voting on a resolution to release the files before going on recess for the month of August. 'There is no daylight between the House Republicans, the House and the president on maximum transparency. He has said he wants all the credible files related to Epstein to be released,' Johnson claimed. Johnson pointed to the president asking the attorney general to release grand jury testimony. 'My belief is we need to have the administration have the space to do what it is doing. If further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we'll look at that, but I don't think we're at that point right now,' he argued. The GOP House leadership plan to head out on break without the vote was called out by podcaster Theo Von. Last fall, Vice President JD Vance called for the files to be released on his show. He tagged Vance in his X post in which he asked Johnson why the House could not put the bill from Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on the floor for a vote. 'Why cant we put the @RoKhanna @RepThomasMassie bill for a vote this week @SpeakerJohnson @JDVance??" he wrote.
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Things to know about the release of federal documents related to MLK's assassination
Advertisement Justice Department attorneys later asked a federal judge to end a sealing order for the records nearly two years ahead of its expiration date. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King led, is opposed to unsealing any of the records for privacy reasons. The organization's lawyers said King's relatives also wanted to keep the files under seal. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents to find new information about the civil rights leader's assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The King family's statement released after Trump's order in January said they hoped to get an opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release. King's family, including his two living children, Martin III and Bernice, was given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records ahead of the public disclosure. Advertisement In a statement released Monday, King's children called their father's case a 'captivating public curiosity for decades.' But they also emphasized the personal nature of the matter and urged that 'these files must be viewed within their full historical context.' 'We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief,' the statement said. Here is what we know about the assassination and what scholars had to say ahead of the release of the documents. In Memphis, shots ring out King was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, heading to dinner with a few friends, when he was shot and killed. King had been in Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike protesting poor working conditions and low pay. The night before the assassination, King delivered the famous 'Mountaintop' speech on a stormy night at the Mason Temple in Memphis. An earlier march on Beale Street had turned violent, and King had returned to Memphis to lead another march as an expression of nonviolent protest. King also had been planning the Poor People's Campaign to speak out against economic injustice. The FBI's investigation After a long manhunt, James Earl Ray was captured in London, and he pleaded guilty to assassinating King. He later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998. FBI documents released over the years show how the bureau wiretapped King's telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to get information against him. 'He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign,' the King family statement said. Advertisement King family's response to the investigation Members of King's family, and others, have questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, asked for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno directed the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department to do so. The Justice Department said it 'found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.' Dexter King, one of King's children, met with Ray in prison in 1997, saying afterwards that he believed Ray's claims of innocence. Dexter King died in 2024. With the support of King's family, a civil trial in state court was held in Memphis in 1999 against Loyd Jowers, a man alleged to have known about a conspiracy to assassinate King. Dozens of witnesses testified, and a Memphis jury found Jowers and unnamed others, including government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate King. What will the public see in the newly released documents? It's not clear what the records will actually show. King scholars, for example, would like to see what information the FBI was discussing and circulating as part of their investigation, said Ryan Jones, director of history, interpretation and curatorial services at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. 'That's critical given the fact the American public, at that time, was unaware that the FBI that is involved in the investigation, was leading a smear campaign to discredit the same man while he was alive,' Jones said. 'They were the same bureau who was receiving notices of assassination attempts against King and ignored them.' Academics who have studied King also would like to see information about the FBI's surveillance of King, including the extent they went to get details about his personal life, track him, and try to discredit him as anti-American, said Lerone A. Martin, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. Advertisement However, Martin said he does not expect that the documents will have a 'smoking gun that will finally say, 'See, this is 100% evidence that the FBI was involved in this assassination.'' 'We have to view these documents with an eye of suspicion because of the extent the FBI was willing to go to, to try to discredit him,' Martin said. Why now? Trump's order about the records release said it is in the 'national interest' to release the records. 'Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,' the order said. However, the timing has led to skepticism from some observers. Jones questioned why the American public had not been able to see these documents much earlier. 'Why were they sealed on the basis of national security, if the assassin was in prison outside of Nashville?' he said. Jones said there are scholars who think the records release is a 'PR stunt' by a presidential administration that is 'rewriting, omitting the advances of some people that are tied to people of color, or diversity.' The Pentagon has faced questions from lawmakers and citizens over the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from Defense Department websites and social media pages after it purged online content that promoted women or minorities. In response, the department restored some of those posts. Martin said Trump's motivation could be part of an effort to shed doubt on government institutions. Advertisement 'It could be an opportunity for the Trump administration to say, 'See, the FBI is evil, I've been trying to tell you this. This is why I've put (FBI director) Kash Patel in office because he's cleaning out the Deep State,'' Martin said. Another factor could be the two attempts on Trump's life as he was campaigning for a second presidential term, and a desire to 'expose the broader history of U.S. assassinations,' said Brian Kwoba, an associate history professor at the University of Memphis. 'That said, it is still a little bit confusing because it's not clear why any U.S. president, including Trump, would want to open up files that could be damaging to the United States and its image both in the U.S. and abroad,' he said.
