FBI PUBLIC AFFAIRS - DIRECTOR'S AM NEWS BRIEFING

FBI PUBLIC AFFAIRS - DIRECTOR'S AM NEWS BRIEFING THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019 5:00 AM EDT EFTA00161134 EFTA00161135 EFTA00161136 FBI Reportedly Studying Two Broken Cameras Outside Cell Where Epstein Died. Reuters (8/28, Hosenball) reports, -Two cameras that malfunctioned outside the jail cell where financier Jeffrey Epstein died as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for examination, a law enforcement source told Reuters: Reuters adds, "Epstein's lawyers Reid Weingarten and Martin Weinberg told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan on Tuesday they had doubts about the New York City chief medical examiner's conclusion that their dient killed himself: According to Reuters, 'The two cameras were within view of the Manhattan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10," and "a source earlier told Reuters two jail guards failed to follow a procedure overnight to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes." The cameras "were sent to Quantico, Virginia, site of a major FBI crime lab where agents and forensic scientists analyze evidence." The New York Post (8/28, Celona, Perez, 4.57M) reports, 'Investigators want to determine whether the recording flaws affect just a small portion of the jail equipment or if ifs a persistent problem at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Epstein had been housed since his July 6 arrest.' Epstein's Accusers Met With Federal Prosecutors, FBI After Emotional Testimony. NBC News (8/28, 6.14M) reports, "Federal prosecutors in the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation sought to reassure his accusers that the system would not let them down in a meeting after the women told their stories Tuesday in federal court, according to several people involved in the case." According to NBC News, "Some of the accusers and their attorneys met with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, and the FBI on Tuesday afternoon, the sources said." NBC News adds, "Berman and William Sweeney, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York Field Office, thanked the victims for their EFTA00161137 bravery in coming forward, and emphasized that the criminal investigation into the accused sex trafficker's potential enablers is ongoing, according to four people with knowledge of the meeting." WPost: Prosecutors Should Fully Investigate Jeffrey Epstein And His Associates. The Washington Post (8/28, Board, 14.2M) editorializes that federal prosecutors should answer the calls for justice by Jeffrey Epstein's accusers and 'leave no stone unturned in determining if there were others culpable in Mr. Epstein's crimes.* The Post says that "if you listen to the women who were victimized, they will tell you that Mr. Epstein got help in procuring teenage girls and women for sex with him and others. That names of some prominent people have come up — all of whom deny any knowledge or wrongdoing — demands there be a thorough investigation and a full airing of the findings." In addition, "there are questions about Mr. Epstein's suicide — including skepticism about the reported facts expressed by his lawyers Tuesday in court — that hopefully will be answered when investigations ordered by Attorney General William P. Barr are completed." EFTA00161138 County Superior Court Judge Stan Allen to a suspended, 5-to-15-month prison sentence, placed on probation and required to make immediate restitution' Corcoran, "who began serving as Eden's city manager in February 2001, submitted his resignation to the city before charges were brought, Mayor Neville Hall said Tuesday: Candice Corcoran "worked part-time at a municipal pool during 2017, but her father added hours to numerous time sheets to represent 40-hour work weeks, Rockingham County and Caswell County District Attorney Jason Ramey said." South Carolina Men Charged With Running Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business. The Greenwood (SC) Index-Journal (8/28, Hensley, 35K) reports, Two Greenwood men arrested last week by federal authorities during raids at Dairy Queen and a Hunters Creek residence waived a preliminary hearing: According to the Index-Journal, "While appearing in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva V. Hodges on Tuesday, the men — Anis Momin and 39-year-old Mihirkumar 'Mike' Jayantibhai Patel — decided not to hear what evidence the FBI has against them and said they needed a Gujarati language interpreter for future hearings." Each man laces one count of running an unlicensed money transmitting business, aiding and abetting: The men "were arrested Aug. 21 while FBI and Homeland Security agents raided Patel's 2,700- square-foot house on Oakmonte Circle as well as Greenwood's Dairy Queen." Probe Finds No Other Yale Coaches Involved In Admissions Scandal. The New Haven (CT) Register (8/28, 225K) reports, "No Yale University coaches other than former women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith accepted bribes to recruit students who were not legitimate athletes, according to an independent investigation." According to the Register, The investigation by the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, also found that just two prospective Yale applicants were involved in the nationwide college recruiting and test-cheating scandal.' Meredith "pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Boston on March 28." Meredith "was being investigated by the FBI for allegedly soliciting a bribe from the father of a prospective student, who revealed the scheme led by William 'Rick' Singer,' and "more than 50 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, have been charged in the operation known as Varsity Blues." French Cybercops Dismantle Global Piracy Network. BBC World News (UK) (8/28, 3.28M) reports, "A team of French police dubbed 'cybergendarmes' has destroyed a virus that infected more than 850,000 computers worldwide, authorities say." According to BBC World News, "The network of infected computers, known as a botnet, was controlled from France and is thought to have made millions of euros from fraud," and "after a tip-off, the French team located and dismantled the pirate server in the Paris region," then "they succeeded in disinfecting the computers around the globe." BBC World News adds, "France's C3N digital crime-fighting centre was alerted in the spring by anti-virus company Avast to the possible existence of a private server that had apparently sent a virus called Retadup to hundreds of thousands of Windows-operating computers, in over 100 countries but mainly in Central and South America." ZDNet (8/28, Cimpanu, 299K) reports, "Antivirus maker Avast and the French National Gendarmerie announced today that they've taken down the backend infrastructure of the Retadup malware gang: and "as a result of gaining access to this infrastructure, Avast and French authorities used the criminal gang's command and control (C&C) servers to instruct the Retadup malware to delete itself from infected computers, effectively disinfecting over 850,000 Windows systems without users having to do anything." ZDNet adds, 'The antivirus maker said that all of this was possible after its malware analysts began looking into the malware with a fine comb back in March.' According to ZDNet, French authorities 'received help from the FBI after Avast found that some parts of the Retadup infrastructure was also hosted in the US." US Working With States To Protect Elections. The AP (8/28, Selsky) reports elections officials from Oregon dealt with various election scenarios "in a tabletop exercise held with federal officials who are working to bolster defenses against interference in the 2020 elections." Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency traveled to La Grande, Oregon, or the exercise last week with state and county elections officials and technology specialists." Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said, "There is no longer any question that foreign governments have sought and will continue to seek to interfere in our elections, and cybersecurity has moved to the top of every election official's priority list." Earlier this summer, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, "also hosted the second 'Tabletop the Vote' national exercise involving 47 states, other government agencies and private sector election companies." Forbes (8/28, O'Flaherty, 9.71M) reports the US Government is planning 'a move to protect voter registration databases and systems against cyberattacks including ransomware ahead of the 2020 election." According to Reuters, "intelligence officials fear the databases may be targeted by nation state hackers, who will seek to 'manipulate, disrupt or destroy' EFTA00161139 the data." US officials said that the systems were deemed "to be a risk because they are one of the few pieces of election technology still connected to the Internet." The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is concerned that databases "could be targeted by ransomware, which encrypts data so it is unreadable until the victim pays the attacker — usually in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoins: The CISA program will include "educational material as well as penetration testing and vulnerability scans." The material will include "advice on how to prevent and recover from ransomware attacks." Amazon's Ring Partnership With Police Departments Raises Privacy Concerns. ABC World News Tonight (8/28, story 15, 0:24, Llamas, 7.01M) reported that Amazon's partnership with police departments that "authorities say will help keep neighborhoods safe" is also "raising privacy concerns." According to ABC, "more than 400 police departments across the country now partnering with the Amazon-owned doorbell camera company Ring." Under the program, "police can automatically request videos recorded by homeowners." Although the requests "can be declined," privacy advocates worry "the program could potentially subject innocent people to law enforcement suspicion." Copyright 2019 by Bulletin Intelligence LLC Reproduction or redistribution without permission prohibited. Content is drawn horn thousands of newspapers. national magazines. national and local television programs, radio broadcasts, social•media platforms and additional forms of open•source data. 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