Soros Prosecutor Freed Violent Offender Now Charged With Killing Homeless Woman
A George Soros-backed prosecutor in Virginia released on probation a violent repeat offender who went on to kill an elderly homeless woman—the third case of its kind in the jurisdiction this year.
Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney Steve Descano (D.) in October charged Chante Antonio Jones with assault and battery before releasing him on recognizance, slapping him with just a $212 fine and one-year period of supervised probation. Police on Monday arrested Jones for beating 63-year-old Michelle Huntley to death at a bus stop where she had taken shelter.
The brutal killing last week is just the latest instance in which bail reform and lightened sentencing by so-called criminal justice reform prosecutors have brought deadly consequences. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Descano's office dropped felony charges against a man who was later charged with killing two homeless men in Washington, D.C., and New York City in March. Two months before, another gunman, whom Descano had pleaded out on misdemeanors in 2020, killed an 18-year-old at a bus stop.
"An innocent Virginian lost their life because of the criminal-first, victim-last mentality pushed by far-left prosecutors," Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares (R.) told the Free Beacon. "Continually giving repeat offenders light sentences and allowing them to quickly get back onto the street only encourages more crime and creates more victims."
Jones, who is also known as Siddiq Khashi Salam, is a repeat offender with more than a dozen charges in Fairfax County in the past three years, including larceny, public intoxication, and indecent exposure. Huntley, who was affectionately called "Mama" by residents, according to ABC 7, was found around midnight on June 17 with evidence of trauma to her upper body. First responders rushed her to the hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries days later. Police records show Jones's assault-and-battery charges stemmed from punching someone in the face months before on a block close to the Huntley killing.
Descano's office did not respond to a request for comment. Jones has been charged with aggravated malicious wounding for Huntley's death (a class-two felony carrying a minimum 20-year sentence), pending a medical examiner's report.
Through his Justice and Public Safety PAC, Soros dropped more than half-a-million dollars in 2019 to help elect Descano, along with other left-wing Virginia commonwealth's attorneys like Loudoun County's Buta Biberaj and Arlington County's Parisa Dehghani-Tafti. Each pushed out veteran prosecutors who had served decades in their counties, promising in their campaigns to reduce incarceration and oppose many felony convictions.
Homicides in Fairfax County are set to outpace their 2021 levels, with 12 so far compared with 10 by this point the year before. The rate last year jumped 40 percent from 2020. A full annual police report, however, has not been released by the county in 2022.
Descano's approach to criminal justice, which has enabled repeat offenders, is now fueling recall efforts in Northern Virginia.
"This abhorrent crime was totally preventable," Sean Kennedy, who is running one of the recall efforts, told the Free Beacon. "Virginians for Safe Communities is dedicated to seeing justice done and removing Steve Descano from office for violating his oath to uphold justice and protect the public. … Like Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, Steve Descano poses a clear and present danger to public safety in Fairfax County."
The recall effort has amassed more than half of the roughly required 30,000 signatures to trigger a special election to remove Descano from office, according to Kennedy.
R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOGnuQQk9zE
Grammy Winning Singer R. Kelly Sentenced to 30 Years in Sex Trafficking Case
NEW YORK (AP) — Fallen R&B superstar R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for using his fame to subject young fans — some just children — to systematic sexual abuse.
Through tears and anger, several of Kelly’s accusers told a court, and him, that he had preyed on them and misled his fans.
“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” said one unnamed survivor, directly addressing a Kelly who kept his hands folded and his eyes downcast.
“Do you remember that?” she added.
Kelly, 55, didn’t speak at his sentencing, where he also was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling singer and songwriter was convicted last year of racketeering and sex trafficking at a trial that gave voice to accusers who had previously wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were Black women.
“Although sex was certainly a weapon that you used, this is not a case about sex. It’s a case about violence, cruelty and control,” U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly told him.
The sentence caps a slow-motion fall for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”
Kelly’s lawyers had argued he should get no more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood “involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence.”
As an adult with “literacy deficiencies,” the star was “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,” his lawyers said.
The hitmaker is known for work including the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and the cult classic “Trapped in the Closet,” a multi-part tale of sexual betrayal and intrigue.
Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.
All the while, Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.
The Brooklyn federal court jury convicted him after hearing that he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation that prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, used his “fame, money and popularity” to systematically “prey upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing earlier this month.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.”
Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video that showed one victim smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Kelly has denied any wrongdoing. He didn’t testify at his trial, but his then-lawyers portrayed his accusers as girlfriends and groupies who weren’t forced to do anything against their will and stayed with him because they enjoyed the perks of his lifestyle.
Evidence also was presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.” She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.
An earlier defense memo suggested prosecutors’ arguments for a higher sentence overreached by falsely claiming Kelly participated in the paying of a bribe to a government official in order to facilitate the illegal marriage.
The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused, unless they come forward publicly. The women who spoke at Kelly’s sentencing were identified only by first names or pseudonyms.
Kelly has been jailed without bail since in 2019. He’s still facing child pornography and obstruction of justice charges in Chicago, where a trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 15.
25 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
Twenty-five people were shot, five of them fatally, during the weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.
Breitbart News reported at least 15 people were shot, three of them fatally, Friday into Saturday alone in Lightfoot’s Chicago.
The first of those the three shooting fatalities was a 5-month-girl who was shot in the head, fatally wounded, while sitting in a vehicle Friday about 6:45 p.m.
There were two more shooting fatalities Friday, one at 11 p.m. and another just after 11:30 p.m.
ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Times notes there were two additional fatal shootings as the weekend continued, bringing the total number of fatal shootings for the weekend to five.
The fourth fatal shooting of the weekend occurred 4:30 a.m. Sunday, when a man was fatally shot while exiting his car “in the 1300-block of West Roosevelt Road.”
The weekend’s fifth fatal shooting took place “in the 300-block of South Pulaski Road” Sunday about 1:30 p.m., when two men opened fire on a CTA bus. A man was shot in the head and killed.
The Sun-Times points out 301 people were killed in Chicago January 1, 2022, through June 26, 2022.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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