Police Seek ‘Christian Mingle’ Date Rape Victims

DOESN'T MATTER - CHRISTIAN OR SECULAR - ONLINE DATING IS NOT SAFE AND FILLED WITH CYBERPATHS 

(USA) — A Southern California man has been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman he met on a Christian dating website.

La Mesa police Lt. Matt Nicholass says 37-year-old Sean Banks, of Del Mar, was taken into custody Monday and booked for investigation of rape and residential burglary. The Navy veteran is accused of assaulting a woman in her La Mesa home last fall.

Police say the two first met on ChristianMingle.com and that the October assault occurred when they met in person for the first time.

Banks has plead not guilty to two counts of rape and was released on $500,000 bond. Authorities claim that he posed as “Rylan Butterwood” and “Rylan Harbough” on the Christian dating web site and they are looking into other potential aliases he used while traveling around the U.S. for work. It’s unclear what he did for a living and police claim that he is currently unemployed.

“We’re looking to see if there are any other victims … who recognize him by his face, because they may not know his real name is Sean,” Nicholass told ABC.

The case has thrust Christian Mingle, a web site that pledges to “Find God’s match for you” into the spotlight, with the company releasing a statement and affirming its compliance with the investigation.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

CONTACTING THE LA MESA CALIFORNIA POLICE

Man Posts Online Threats & Allegations - Gets Convicted

John E. Murphy, Acting United States Attorney announced that 32-year-old Steven Weste is in federal custody today after a jury in San Antonio found him guilty of making false statements to and concealing material facts from federal authorities and e-mailing threats to kill people including a person hired to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent, a Virginia police officer, and Weste’s former girlfriend.

Following the jury’s verdict handed down yesterday, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ordered that Weste, who had been out on a $50,000 unsecured bond prior to trial, be remanded to the custody of the United States Marshal. Judge Rodriguez scheduled sentencing for October 30, 2009.

Weste, a Judson High School teacher who was transferred to an administrative post subsequent to being indicted, faces up to five years in federal prison per each of the 15 counts of which he was convicted.

The jury found that between November 2006 and January 2007, Weste sent scores of e-mails which either contained threats to kill or contained false statements. Testimony during the trial revealed that among those e-mails, Weste, in December 2006, threatened to kill his former student and former girlfriend, who was at the time attending the College of William and Mary in Virginia, upon her return home during Christmas break. Weste followed up by sending e-mails to a campus Police Lieutenant threatening to kill him and “everyone close to” him if he continued investigating Weste’s initial e-mail threat to kill his former girlfriend.

Testimony also revealed that Weste e-mailed a threatening communication on December 21, 2006 to one of his former students who was attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which Weste threatened to kill the student and his entire family.

In addition to e-mailing the threats to kill, jurors also found that in November 2006, Weste, using aliases, sent various e-mails to federal authorities which contained false child molestation and sexual assault allegations with the intent to discredit an individual hired to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent in El Paso. The agent had previously dated the sister of Weste’s former girlfriend and Judson student.

This case was investigated by the College of William and Mary Police Department, Department of Homeland Security–Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBPIA), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation together with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The police departments from the Judson Independent School District, University of Texas at Austin and Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the San Antonio Police Department also provided assistance in this investigation.

Former CBPIA Special Agent Joe Arredondo, who began the investigation more than two years ago, came out of retirement to provide invaluable assistance to the prosecution throughout the trial. Assistant United States Attorneys Jim Blankinship and Tom McHugh are prosecuting this case on behalf of the government.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

JOSEPH A. CAFASSO - CON MAN EXPOSED

Con Man identified in Simpson County
by Clara Aucoin

Joseph A. Cafasso was not prepared for the scrutiny he faced in Mendenhall, Mississippi. Leave it to a small town sheriff and a smaller town mayor to get the drop on a national conman.

Joseph "Jay" A. Cafasso, is a man of multiple talents, the foremost it seems, is to run scams on unknowing victims. These are not ignorant people, they include Fox News, Columbia University, the Dallas Morning News, the New York Magazine, and many others.

Cafasso zooms into town with accolades and education dripping off him. His game is to talk about his background, and his expertise, and volunteer to help people in their endeavors.

He worked for Fox News until they found out he was a phony. Locally, Cafasso worked for the Mendenhall Ministries as a Development Director, until he was found out, then he moved on to try and "help" Mendenhall.

The con man claims he is ex-CIA, secret agent, a Knight of Malta, claims to be traveling on a Vatican passport, and claims a vast array of illnesses and injuries.

If the name Joseph Cafasso or Jay Cafasso is searched via Google or Yahoo, voluminous text, pictures, and stories pop up.The photographs reveal all the stories are about the same person, although Cafasso has been known to change his appearance drastically. He lost 50 pounds, ditched his glasses, and shaved off a mustache and beard to alter his appearance. Now, he has something like, "the Indiana Jones look,"
going on said Mendenhall Mayor Randall Neely.

While in Simpson County, without knowing he was being thoroughly investigated by local law enforcement, Cafasso had the backbone to meet with Mayor Neely, the Sheriff, representatives for a senator, and Simpson Count Emergency Services Director. Neely said, "We knew he was a fake, we just wanted to see where he was going."

Evidently he was going somewhere because now he has disappeared from Mendenhall.
Neely said the last time he had seen Cafasso the con man had said he was going to St. Dominic's to have his gall bladder removed.

That behavior too was part of his typical pattern. Most of the reports have indicated that when things began to go "bad" for the con man, he would "suffer" some illness or injury that required medical treatment and simply disappear.

Although local law enforcement knew Cafasso was a fake, they also could not find that he had broken any laws. Zealous work on local, state, and national crime computers have also not provided any outstanding warrants. Although Cafasso leaves a swath of stolen identifications and credit card theft, it appears he did none of that
while in Simpson County.

However, the man had a plethora of approximately 15 aliases. It is suspected there are warrants against him under other names. Anyone with information regarding this man is urged to contact the Simpson County Sheriff Kenneth Lewis, at 601-847-2921, or Mendenhall Police Investigator Bruce Barlow at 601-847-2641.

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