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Father murdered 5 year old son

Plumber arrested for Portuguese commune murder ‘lured fellow Brit to remote woodland’

September 28, 2023 by www.mirror.co.uk Leave a Comment

A plumber who allegedly slaughtered a fellow Brit in an off-grid commune in Portugal “lured” the victim to a patch of remote forest before knifing him repeatedly until he died, say police.

Josh Menkens, from Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, is alleged to have stabbed the 37-year-old multiple times before “desecrating” his corpse and trying to conceal the “exceptional display of violence” by hiding it, police say. The 27-year-old is now in custody of the Portuguese police and has already been interviewed twice by a judge in Leiria, central Portugal.

Troy Menkens, Josh’s dad, has flown out to support his son and was seen outside the court yesterday. He insisted his boy was “kind and caring” despite the charges held against him. Menkens was reportedly one of the organisers of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party festival, which was attached to the remote Libelinha Venture, an off-grid commune run by Oxford-educated nature lover Xavier Hancock and his lover Arantxa Atauri.

The Libelinha Venture off grid commune

After the killing, rumours swirled that the pair had been playing a “suicide challenge” – in which players are set tasks culminating with them taking their own life. Investigators have now ruled this out.

In a statement a few hours after the incidnet, Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria (PJ) said: “The PJ’s Central Directorate, with the collaboration of Pedrogao Grande’s GNR police force, can confirm it arrested a man for the alleged crimes of homicide and desecration of a corpse in the town of Soalheira.

“The defendant, a foreigner and organizer of a party on a rural property, took the victim to an isolated forest location where, armed with a knife, he attacked him with exceptional violence hitting him in several areas of the body and causing his death. After committing the homicide, the suspect hid the body using tree branches and pieces of clothing.

Police working at the crime site (

Image:

CM tv)

“Later, he revealed the acts he had committed to the other participants of the party. After confirming their veracity, they went to the GNR in Pedrogao Grande along with the suspect to report what had happened. The victim, a 37-year-old foreign man had travelled to Portugal to participate in the event and apparently did not know the defendant personally.

“It has not yet been possible to determine the motive for the crimes, but any relationship with games or online challenges has initially been ruled out. The 27-year-old detainee was present during his first judicial interrogation which resulted in his preventive detention.”

Standing outside the court, Josh’s father recalled the moment his son contacted him from the police station on Sunday. Troy, 52, told the MailOnline: “I got a call from him out of the blue, just before midnight on Sunday. My son was talking at a million miles an hour, in a head-melt, firing stuff at me. I was trying to be as calm as I could and find out where he was being held and how I could get there.”

Xavier Hancock and Arantxa Atauri run the commune (

Image:

Xavier Hancock/Facebook)

Troy called for people to avoid speculating while there are still a number of unanswered questions. When asked about the victim, Troy said he only knew his nickname and other details that he read in the paper.

Troy added: “Every dad who cares about their son will always say they’re wonderful, of course, but Josh is a nice, loving caring individual who everyone should want in this world, he’s just a lovely person, genuine and caring.” He added that his son is struggling with the “circumstances” and his “overwhelmed and in a head-melt”, but did not say anything more about the victim.

The Welwyn-Garden-City businessman said he was struggling with the Portuguese justice system, which he said is highly secretive and difficult to navigate. The knife the suspect Josh allegedly used is said to have been recovered at the scene after they went with officers to the remote woodland spot where the British man’s body was found.

Footage published by Portuguese daily Correio da Manha showed GNR officers lifting the dead man’s body on a stretcher after it was covered with a sheet and putting it into the back of a nearby police van. The group that raised the alarm are thought to have attended a private party on Saturday night near the area where the dead man’s body was found before heading to the remote woodland spot.

Filed Under: World news Murder, Knife crime, Portugal, Murder trial, World news, arresting communication, boston portuguese community

Matteo Messina Denaro, Mafia boss who evaded capture for 30 years and was convicted of more than 50 murders – obituary

September 26, 2023 by www.telegraph.co.uk Leave a Comment

Matteo Messina Denaro, who has died in prison aged 61 of colon cancer, was regarded as the head of the Sicilian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra.

Nicknamed “Diabolik” or “U siccu” (the Thin One) he became “u capu di ’i capi” (boss of bosses) after the arrest in 2006 of the previous head of Cosa Nostra, Bernardo “U Tratturi” (the Tractor) Provenzano , who in turn had replaced Toto “La Belva” (the Beast) Ri’ina when he was arrested in 1993.

But Messina Denaro’s control of Cosa Nostra was never as absolute as theirs had been. This was in part because he was not from the town of Corleone, in the Sicilian interior to the south of Palermo, as they were, but from near Trapani on the north-west coast.

But it was also a reflection of the concerted effort by the Italian state over the last few decades to destroy Cosa Nostra. These days, the Calabrian and Neapolitan Mafia – the N’Drangheta and the Camorra – are said to be far more powerful.

Messina Denaro had been on the run for 30 years when he was finally arrested in January this year thanks to a brilliantly planned undercover police operation that ensnared him when he went to a private hospital in Palermo where he was undergoing chemotherapy using a false name.

They had intercepted telephone calls from people who mentioned him by name and said that he was having cancer treatment. They trawled through the records of everyone undergoing such treatment in Sicily to find one who fitted his profile. When they arrested him they were not sure that he was Messina Denaro as they had no recent photograph of him but when he was asked to say who he was, he confessed.

While on the run, Messina Denaro had been convicted of more than 50 murders. These included his role in the assassination of Italy’s two most famous anti-Mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in two car bomb attacks in Sicily within the space of three months in 1992.

They also included the strangling of Antonella Bonomo, the widow of a rival Mafia boss who was three months pregnant, and the kidnap and murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a Mafioso who had become an informant.

The boy was held in captivity for more than two years before being strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996. “Men of Honour”, as Mafiosi style themselves, are not supposed to kill pregnant women or children. Messina Denaro did.

The 1992 bomb attacks on the two anti-Mafia magistrates, plus further bomb attacks in 1993, most notably in Florence, Rome and Milan, amounted to a declaration of war by Cosa Nostra on the Italian state.

It was Ri’ina who ordered those attacks in retaliation for the so-called “Maxiprocesso” – said to be the largest ever trial anywhere ever – that the two judges had masterminded in the late 1980s and which saw 460 Mafiosi convicted. But it was Messina Denaro who did the dirty work.

In the end, Cosa Nostra was severely weakened by the Italian state’s determined drive to eradicate it – or at least, that is how it seems. But Cosa Nostra may just have switched tactics and decided, as Michael Corleone did in the last Godfather film, to abandon violence and go “legit”.

Matteo Messina Denaro was born on 26 April 1962 in the town of Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani, the fourth of six children of Francesco Messina Denaro and Lorenza Santangelo. His father was a local Mafia boss known as “Don Ciccio” (Don Fatso).

The boy left school early and did not do the Italian equivalent of A-levels; later he would say that one of the biggest regrets of his life was that he had not gone to university. Short-sighted and cross-eyed, he took to wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses.

Post-war Cosa Nostra bosses such as Ri’ina, who died in 2017, and Provenzano, who died in 2016, looked and behaved like peasant farmers. Messina Denaro was suburban flash: he wore Armani and Versace, drove sports cars and loved comics and computer games, cognac, Cuban cigars and expensive restaurants. When he was arrested he had a Richard Mille watch worth about €30,000 on his wrist.

In one of the flats he lived in there was a poster on the wall of Marlon Brando as the Godfather, five different identity documents, and a Smith & Wesson pistol hidden in a secret compartment in a kitchen cupboard.

In another, there was a magnet on the fridge with the image of Marlon Brando and the words: “I am the Godfather”. There were also biographies of Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler and books on philosophy and current affairs.

Unlike traditional Mafia bosses Messina Denaro did not observe Cosa Nostra’s strict adherence to traditional family values and the Catholic church. He was a womaniser who never married and did not believe in God or go to Mass.

He had at least one child, with a woman called Francesca Alegna – a daughter, Lorenza, born in 1996, whom he never knew until she visited him in prison at the end of his life and agreed with his consent to take his surname.

His principal girlfriend was Laura Bonafede, a primary school teacher in Campobello di Mazara, the small town where he lived incognito, who is the daughter of a local Mafia boss and wife of another Mafioso serving a life sentence. She is in custody awaiting trial for protecting Messina Denaro.

That such a woman can openly work as a teacher illustrates the gravity of Sicily’s Mafia problem. According to court documents, the only explanation for her loyalty to Messina Denaro was her “total adhesion to the spirit, ideals, and behaviour of one of the most ferocious Mafiosi ever seen in Italy”.

Yes, the Mafia protects people, but ultimately it is the people who protect the Mafia – which, they reckon, is preferable to the state. The Mafia protects them – in every sense of the word – unlike the state. Indeed, the Mafia protects them from the state. Everyone, surely, in that small town knew who Messina Denaro was. All remained silent.

Like him, Provenzano and Ri’ina also spent decades on the run under the noses of the police. Ri’ina was arrested in a car coming out of the residential compound in Palermo where he had lived for years, while Provenzano was arrested inside a shepherd’s hut near Corleone, where both were born.

Like them, Messina Denaro refused to reveal any information about Cosa Nostra to investigating magistrates. He denied that he was a Mafioso and claimed that he only knew about Cosa Nostra from “reading the newspapers”.

Messina Denaro will be buried in his family’s mausoleum in the cemetery at Castelvetrano but there will be no religious ceremony in accordance with Catholic Church policy regarding the deaths of Mafia bosses. Not that this would worry him.

Provenzano was a devout Catholic who used to send coded messages to his Mafiosi, including Messina Denaro, inside copies of the Bible. He would invariably include benedictions such as: “May the Lord bless and protect you.” But Messina Denaro, who described himself as an agnostic, felt contempt for the Church.

In a 2013 diary found by police in one of the flats he lived in he wrote: “I refuse any religious ceremony because [they are] made by unclean men who live in hatred and sin. It will not be those who proclaim themselves to be soldiers of God who will be able to decide the fate of my lifeless corpse.” After death, he said elsewhere, “There is nothing.”

Matteo Messina Denaro, born April 26 1962, died September 25 2023

Filed Under: Uncategorized Mafia, Obituaries, Obituary, US content, Standard, Sicily, caol ila 30 years, charlotte collyer 30 years and 8 years old marjorie survivors titanic 1912

India-Canada row: Hardeep Singh Nijjar met Canadian intelligence officers every week before death, says son

September 28, 2023 by economictimes.indiatimes.com Leave a Comment

Synopsis

Nijjar’s son, 21, said his father met officers of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “once or twice a week,” including one or two days before his murder, Vancouver Sun quoted him as saying. His father was scheduled to meet CSIS two days after his death, he added. In an interview, Nijjar’s son said that the meetings began in February and had increased in frequency in the months leading up to the killing.

Balraj Singh Nijjar , son of slain Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar , on Thursday said his father met Canadian intelligence officers regularly months before he was shot dead outside a gurdwara in Surrey in British Columbia on June 18.

Nijjar’s son, 21, said his father met officers of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “once or twice a week,” including one or two days before his murder, Vancouver Sun quoted him as saying. His father was scheduled to meet CSIS two days after his death, he added.

In an interview, Nijjar’s son said that the meetings began in February and had increased in frequency in the months leading up to the killing.

He further said that he also attended one such meeting, where the officers informed them about threats to his father’s life. “He was advised to stay at home,” he told the Vancouver Sun.

Balraj Singh Nijjar further said his father had received several threatening messages for his advocacy of Sikh independence.

“If you don’t stop talking about Khalistan , we’ll kill you,” he said.

Earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that the Indian government was behind the killing of 45-year-old Nijjar, a claim India rejected as “absurd” and “motivated”.

This followed a spree of tit-for-tat moves with both India and Ottawa’s expelling senior diplomats, India also suspended its visa services and issued an advisory for its citizens to exercise “utmost caution in view of growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes and criminal violence” in the country.

Last Thursday, Trudeau said his country stands by the international rules-based order and repeated his charge on India’s role in the killing of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar stating that there are “credible reasons” to believe the same.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has assured the Canadian side to take action if they provide specific information in connection with Nijjar’s killing, adding “We are open to looking at it.”

Speaking at a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesay, Jaishankar said, “We told the Canadians that this is not the government of India’s policy. Secondly, we said if you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it…The picture is not complete without the context in a way”.

Notably, Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Jaishankar further said that there has been a lot of “organised crime” in Canada in the last few years, and the Indian government has given a lot of information to Canada regarding this.

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11 Fatal Minutes That Have Jacksonville Confronting Racism Yet Again

August 27, 2023 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

In the span of 11 terrifying minutes, a gunman targeting Black people killed two shoppers and an employee at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Fla., a rampage that the authorities are investigating as a hate crime and that has reverberated through a community that has long coped with the legacy of racism.

The shooting on Saturday, on the same day that the nation commemorated the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, prompted somber vigils and renewed vows for unity from residents and officials, but also a tense appearance by the governor in a city that in recent years has dealt with a series of hateful incidents and a continuing dispute over Confederate monuments.

“We have three people who are dead because they are Black,” State Senator Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, said at a vigil on Sunday morning. “Shopping. In our community. Gunned down. Because they were Black.”

The three victims were identified on Sunday by Sheriff T.K. Waters of Jacksonville as Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., known as A.J., 29, who worked at the store; and Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 19. The sheriff identified the gunman as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, a white 21-year-old from neighboring Clay County and gave a chilling timeline of how the shooting had unfolded.

Ms. Carr, an Uber driver, had dropped off a friend at the store just before she was killed, said her son, Chayvaughn Payne.

“She would give her shirt off her back for people,” Mr. Payne, 30, said, describing Ms. Carr as someone who would invite people to cookouts and other family events.

“This is really hard to process,” he added. “To lose a mother for nothing.”

The gunman, wearing a shirt over a tactical vest, as well as a mask and gloves, began his rampage at around 1:08 p.m. on Saturday by shooting 11 times into a car parked outside the Dollar General, killing Ms. Carr, the sheriff said in a news conference.

The assailant went into the store, turned right and killed Mr. Laguerre before chasing some customers out, though it was unclear why. He returned and killed Mr. Gallion, who had entered through the front door with his girlfriend. The gunman then chased and shot at a woman, though he did not injure her.

When sheriff’s deputies arrived, at about 1:19 p.m., they heard a single gunshot, which was most likely the gunman killing himself, Sheriff Waters said.

“When a person grabs a hold of a gun with hateful intentions, it’s very difficult to stop that from happening,” he said.

The gunman had no criminal record, though the authorities had held him for an involuntary, 72-hour psychiatric evaluation in 2017, when he was 15, the sheriff said. A year earlier, the police received a domestic violence call involving him and his brother.

The gunman legally bought the two weapons he used in the shooting — a Glock handgun and an AR-15-style rifle — in April and June, Sheriff Waters said.

Psychiatric evaluations under a Florida law known as the Baker Act do not show up in background checks unless the person has been committed for treatment.

Shortly before the shooting on Saturday, the gunman was spotted putting on the tactical vest in a parking lot at Edward Waters University, a small and private historically Black institution. A campus security guard saw him, and the gunman drove away in a gray Honda Element. The guard reported the gunman’s suspicious presence to a nearby sheriff’s deputy, Sheriff Waters said.

Two people were in proximity to the gunman in the Edward Waters parking lot, but he did not go after them, the sheriff said, cautioning against assumptions that the university might have been the intended target.

Still, the sheriff said it was clear that the gunman sought Black victims. Most — but not all — of the customers he ordered out of the store were white, the sheriff said at the news conference. In an interview, Sheriff Waters said the gunman did not shoot at one person inside the store who was also white.

“I know for a fact that he did not like Black people,” said Sheriff Waters, who is Black. “He made that very clear.”

Toward the end of the shooting, the gunman texted his father, instructing him to use a screwdriver to get into his room at home, the sheriff said. On the gunman’s laptop, his family found a last will and testament and a suicide note as part of more than 20 pages of racist writings, Sheriff Waters said in the interview. The family then called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, though by then the shooting was over.

A police car was parked outside the family home in Orange Park on Sunday. Residents of the quiet, suburban neighborhood declined to speak about the family, and relatives could not be reached for comment. Police records indicate that the gunman’s older brother is serving a prison sentence for an armed robbery in 2017.

According to what appears to be an account of the gunman’s on X, formerly known as Twitter, he attended Oakleaf High School. In November 2019, he posted a photo of an acceptance letter from Flagler College. A spokeswoman said on Sunday that he was not currently a student.

The Justice Department is investigating the attack as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism. In March, the F.B.I. released an analysis of hate crime incidents in 2021 — the last year data was fully available — which said that hate crimes overall had increased by more than 11 percent since 2020. According to the data, anti-Black hate crimes made up the largest “bias incident category,” with 31 percent of all single-bias incidents in 2021.

Jacksonville, a city of nearly 1 million people, where about 30 percent of residents are Black, has a long history of racism. Sunday marked the 63rd anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, when white supremacists severely beat a group of mostly Black civil rights activists. Mayor Donna Deegan and other local officials planned to attend a commemorative ceremony in the afternoon, before a vigil for the Dollar General shooting victims.

Last year, on the morning of Sept. 11, a neo-Nazi group unfurled swastika flags and antisemitic banners on an Interstate 95 overpass. And earlier in 2022, homeowners in two neighborhoods found fliers with hate speech littering their driveways.

Last October, an extremist group displayed antisemitic messages around Jacksonville, including at TIAA Bank Field ahead of a Florida-Georgia college football game. Other hateful messages appeared on an Interstate 10 overpass and along another highway.

The Republican-held City Council has declined to remove a Confederate monument from a park, despite pleas from the mayor and a former mayor, who is a Republican, to do so.

“We’re still fighting the same fight, but some days it feels like we’re going backwards,” Ms. Deegan said at the Sunday morning vigil.

In May, Ms. Deegan, a Democrat, was elected to lead Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city , where Republican mayors had been in power for all but four of the last 30 years. Among her administrative appointments was a chief of diversity, equity and inclusion — a $185,000-a-year position that a committee of the City Council voted to defund on Thursday, citing budgetary concerns.

Ms. Deegan blamed state politics under Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican running for president, who has enacted laws rolling back diversity and inclusion policies — and whose administration came under withering criticism for rejecting the curriculum of an Advanced Placement African American studies class and rewriting African American history courses .

Mr. DeSantis, who sees public education as too liberal, attended a vigil unannounced on Sunday evening that drew about 150 people. The crowd booed loudly when he was introduced to speak, and a councilwoman had to step in and ask people to listen. After he spoke, he was booed again.

He said earlier on Sunday in Tallahassee that he had talked with Jacksonville officials and with the administration of Edward Waters to ensure the university had adequate security.

“Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable, and targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida,” he said.

The morning vigil, at Saint Paul A.M.E. Church of Jacksonville, was attended by at least four Edward Waters University students. A professor described students as still too overwhelmed to talk about the shooting.

The choir sang “Amazing Grace” as some of those in attendance wiped away tears.

Livia Albeck-Ripka

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Youth pastor who allegedly tried to kill wife, 5 children was afraid of being evicted from home: affidavit

September 27, 2023 by www.foxnews.com Leave a Comment

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Kansas youth pastor who allegedly tried to kill wife, 5 children appears in court Video

Kansas youth pastor who allegedly tried to kill wife, 5 children appears in court

Kansas youth pastor Matthew Lee Richards, who allegedly tried to stab his wife and five children to death before attempting to set his home on fire, appeared in court last week, according to FOX 4 Kansas City.

A Kansas youth pastor, who allegedly tried to stab his wife and five children to death before attempting to set his home on fire, was apparently afraid of being evicted, according to a recently unsealed affidavit.

Matthew Richards, 41, is charged with five counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson with risk of bodily harm in connection with the Sept. 16 incident.

“I stabbed my kids, detective. I stabbed my wife,” Richards apparently told Shawnee police before calling himself a “monster,” according to an affidavit.

Richards told police his family was going to be evicted the same day he allegedly tried to murder his family members, and he had not been honest with his wife about their financial standing.

YOUTH PASTOR ALLEGEDLY TRIED TO KILL WIFE, 5 CHILDREN BEFORE SETTING HOME ON FIRE: POLICE

Matthew Richards mugshot

Matthew Richards, 41, is charged with five counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson with risk of bodily harm in connection with the Sept. 16 incident. (Johnson County Jail)

He further told police “it would be better if they all died” rather than his family “find out the truth” about their financial situation, according to an affidavit filed in Johnson County.

Richards’ children, including a 19-year-old and four juveniles, and his wife all sustained “laceration injuries of varying degrees,” according to a press release from the Shawnee Police Department.

KANSAS STORE WORKER CHARGED WITH MURDER AFTER FIGHT ENDS IN DEATH OF SUSPECTED SHOPLIFTER

Two of the children had injuries to their internal organs, and his wife was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition, the affidavit states.

Shawnee officers and firefighters responded to reports of a disturbance and fire at the pastor’s home at 3:47 a.m. on Sept. 16.

The outside of Matthew Richards' home following his alleged attack on his family

One of Matthew Richards’ children called 911 after witnessing his father stab his mother. Richards then chased down the child while holding a knife, according to the affidavit. (FOX 4 Kansas City)

One of Richards’ children called 911 after witnessing the pastor stab his wife. Richards then chased down the child while holding a knife, according to the affidavit. Another female caller stated that she had been stabbed.

“Officer spoke to a [redacted]-year-old child, [redacted], with a wound to the neck who stated they were all in bed when their dad came around stabbing everyone and they all ran outside,” the affidavit states.

PREGNANT MOM, 2 YOUNG SONS FOUND DEAD INSIDE RV

“My dad just decided to pull out a knife,” the child told police, according to the affidavit.

Firefighters located a blaze in the basement of the house on Goode Drive in Shawnee and “quickly extinguished” it. Authorities transported all five victims and Richards to the hospital for treatment.

Firefighters located a blaze in the basement of the house and “quickly extinguished” it. Authorities transported all five victims and Richards to the hospital for treatment. (Google Maps)

Evidence shows Richards’ wife and children were stabbed through multiple areas inside the house.

Richards’ biography on the Crossroads Christian Church website states that he is “a big kids [sic] who loves teaching little kids about Jesus.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE TRUE CRIME FROM FOX NEWS

“He has been married to Stephanie since 2003 and they have 4 boys and 1 girl. He and his family have three rules: 1. Love God, 2. Love People, 3. Love Sports (especially the Jayhawks and Sporting KC),” the biography states. “Matt and his family have been at Crossroads since August 2016 and look forward to many more years helping teach and reach those in the Shawnee area.”

Matthew Richards makes a virtual appearance in court on Sept. 18

Matthew Richards is being held on $5 million bond. He did not enter a plea when he appeared in court. (FOX 4 Kansas City)

“Our church family is shocked, we’re sickened, we’re saddened by the events of early Saturday morning involving our former children’s pastor,” Crossroads Church Pastor Kurt Witten told FOX 4 Kansas City.

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The church said in a Sept. 19 Facebook post that it is collecting donations for Richards’ wife and children.

Richards is being held on $5 million bond. He did not enter a plea when he appeared in court

Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business. Email tips to [email protected] or on Twitter at @audpants.

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