Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold has been arrested in connection to an alleged armed attack on a group of men in Tampa, Fla., in February. He faces eight felony charges of kidnapping and robbery that could keep him in prison for life if convicted.
Investigators believe Arnold was the “primary conspirator” in an alleged plot that left three young men with “visible injuries from being battered, held at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped before their personal property was stolen and they were ordered to leave,” the Tampa Police Department said Wednesday in a news release.
Six other suspects previously were arrested. Two women already pleaded guilty and agreed to help authorities prosecute Arnold, police said.
The second-year player turned himself in Wednesday night and was held in a Hillsborough County jail without bond before his arraignment hearing Thursday afternoon.
Arnold appeared remotely during the brief hearing, where he was charged with three counts of robbery with a firearm or deadly weapon for less than $750 and three counts of kidnapping to harm or terrorize, all of which are first-degree felonies. He was also charged with two second-degree felonies for conspiring to commit those crimes.
“He’s absolutely denying these allegations,” defense attorney R. Timothy Jansen said during Hillsborough County court proceedings.
Arnold will be held without bond until a pretrial detention hearing Monday, where the Hillsborough County state attorney’s office will argue for him to remain behind bars until trial.
According to Tampa police, several items belonging to Arnold and others were stolen Feb. 1 from an Airbnb rental property in Largo. They reported to Largo police that the items were worth more than $250,000.
The alleged incident that led to Arnold’s arrest occurred early Feb. 4. It was plotted, Tampa police said, because Arnold suspected that two of the three men were responsible for stealing the items. Investigators later determined those men were not involved, police said.
Police said the victims were lured to an apartment, where they were held at gunpoint and hit by suspects who were streaming the alleged attack to Arnold, who is accused of helping coordinate the plot and giving orders to the alleged attackers on a group chat during the incident. He later arrived at the apartment and drove some of the suspects away, police said.
“Fame doesn’t get you out of criminal charges or our pursuit of justice and holding criminals accountable,” Tampa police chief Lee Bercaw said in a statement posted to X. “Our victims now have some closure thanks to the great work of our detectives and our strong partnership with State Attorney Suzy Lopez.”
The head of the management agency that represents Arnold said in a statement that the former first-round draft pick “categorically denies any involvement in the matters unlying the allegations made against him and maintains his innocence.”
“There is no credible evidence linking Mr. Arnold to these allegations,” EAG Sports Management CEO Denise White said. “Instead, the government appears to be relying on testimony from multiple convicted felons who have admitted their own involvement and may have substantial incentives to shift blame in an effort to lessen their sentences.”
Arnold has played in 24 games for the Lions. He had 31 tackles and an interception last season before going on injured reserve with a shoulder injury on Dec. 1.
The Lions said they are aware of Arnold’s situation but have no further comment.
Emmerdale spoilers for next week tease big moments ahead on the ITV soap, from Dr Todd being exposed, to a planned Home Farm robbery and there’s also an affair heating up
New Emmerdale spoilers teasing big plans and secrets under threat(Image: ITV)
It’s another big week ahead on Emmerdale, with new spoilers teasing big plans and secrets under threat.
Charity’s desperate when Kim pulls out of the Woolpack purchase deal. She instead asks Kim for a loan, but Chas overhears their conversation. Charity confesses to Chas she’s being blackmailed by Dr. Todd about Leyla’s true parentage.
Charity and Chas hatch a plan to rob Home Farm to pay Todd. When Charity can only give Todd a portion of the money she’s demanding, Todd demands the rest of it within 24 hours, or she will reveal her secret.
Laurel and Ross’ secret affair heats up, while Gabby is devastated over her rejection from Ross. As Ross and Laurel’s passion continues, only for them to almost be rumbled by Sam.
To cover things up, Ross claims Laurel is Sam’s new dance partner as Sam continues to have secret sessions to impress Lydia. Kim is suspicious of Sam’s shifty behaviour though, while Nicola, knowing about Ross and Laurel, almost reveals all to Manpreet.
Kerry and Pollard present a united front after being conned by Archie. Liam advises Cain to find a practical solution to start living his life again and Gabby contemplates clean living.
Emmerdale isn’t the only soap seeing big things ahead, with Hollyoaks and Home and Away also offering emotional and dramatic moments in the coming days. On Hollyoaks, Diane’s funeral arrives, and Dee Dee is devastated by her late mum’s letter to Tony.
Dee Dee publicly calls out Leela, accusing her of trying to replace Diane. As Dee Dee turns to drugs to deal with her grief, Tony is concerned.
Elsewhere, Beth is convinced the Osbornes are hiding Charlie who has decided to go on the run from the police. As she organises a family lunch, what does she have planned?
As for Home and Away, Tane wakes from his coma after his recent brutal prison attack, and he shocks Jo by dumping her after she’s been supporting him at his bedside. Alf sparks concerns after his recent driving troubles, as he’s determined to visit Martha.
But when he faces accusations of a hit and run, is he to blame? Sonny wants to move back in with Dana, and Richie and Cash continue to clash at work.
So it’s a big week across more than one soap next week, with plenty to keep focus on. As ever some things are not revealed in spoilers too with plenty under wraps, so expect twists and turns.
WASHINGTON — A man carrying a gun and a cellphone entered a federal credit union in a small town in central Virginia in May 2019 and demanded cash.
He left with $195,000 in a bag and no clue to his identity. But his smartphone was keeping track of him.
What happened next could yield a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court on the 4th Amendment and its restrictions against “unreasonable searches.”
Typically, police use tips or leads to find suspects, then seek a search warrant from a judge to enter a house or other private area to seize the evidence that can prove a crime.
Civil libertarians say the new “digital dragnets” work in reverse.
“It’s grab the data and search first. Suspicion later. That’s opposite of how our system has worked, and it’s really dangerous,” said Jake Laperruque, an attorney for the Center for Democracy & Technology.
But these new data scans can be effective in finding criminals.
Lacking leads in the Virginia bank robbery, a police detective turned to what one judge in the case called a “groundbreaking investigative tool … enabling the relentless collection of eerily precise location data.”
Cellphones can be tracked through towers, and Google stored this location history data for hundreds of millions of users. The detective sent Google a demand for information known as a “geofence warrant,” referring to a virtual fence around a particular geographic area at a specific time.
The officer sought phones that were within 150 yards of the bank during the hour of the robbery. He used that data to locate Okello Chatrie, then obtained a search warrant of his home where the cash and the holdup notes were found.
Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea, but the Supreme Court will hear his appeal on April 27.
The justices agreed to decide whether geofence warrants violate the 4th Amendment.
The outcome may go beyond location tracking. At issue more broadly is the legal status of the vast amount of privately stored data that can be easily scanned.
This may include words or phrases found in Google searches or in emails. For example, investigators may want to know who searched for a particular address in the weeks before an arson or a murder took place there or who searched for information on making a particular type of bomb.
Judges are deeply divided on how this fits with the 4th Amendment.
Two years ago, the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled “geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the 4th Amendment.”
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberals in a 4th Amendment privacy case in 2018.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Historians of the 4th Amendment say the constitutional ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures” arose from the anger in the American colonies over British officers using general warrants to search homes and stores even when they had no reason to suspect any particular person of wrongdoing.
The National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers relies on that contention in opposing geofence warrants.
Its lawyers argued the government obtained Chatrie’s “private location information … with an unconstitutional general warrant that compelled Google to conduct a fishing expedition through millions of Google accounts, without any basis for believing that any one of them would contain incriminating evidence.”
Meanwhile, the more liberal 4th Circuit in Virginia divided 7-7 to reject Chatrie’s appeal. Several judges explained the law was not clear, and the police officer had done nothing wrong.
“There was no search here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a concurring opinion that defended the use of this tracking data.
He pointed to Supreme Court rulings in the 1970s declaring that check records held by a bank or dialing records held by a phone company were not private and could be searched by investigators without a warrant.
Chatrie had agreed to having his location records held by Google. If financial records for several months are not private, the judge wrote, “surely this request for a two-hour snapshot of one’s public movements” is not private either.
Google changed its policy in 2023 and no longer stores location history data for all of its users. But cellphone carriers continue to receive warrants that seek tracking data.
Wilkinson, a prominent conservative from the Reagan era, also argued it would be a mistake for the courts to “frustrate law enforcement’s ability to keep pace with tech-savvy criminals” or cause “more cold cases to go unsolved. Think of a murder where the culprit leaves behind his encrypted phone and nothing else. No fingerprints, no witnesses, no murder weapon. But because the killer allowed Google to track his location, a geofence warrant can crack the case,” he wrote.
Judges in Los Angeles upheld the use of a geofence warrant to find and convict two men for a robbery and murder in a bank parking lot in Paramount.
The victim, Adbadalla Thabet, collected cash from gas stations in Downey, Bellflower, Compton and Lynwood early in the morning before driving to the bank.
After he was robbed and shot, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective found video surveillance that showed he had been followed by two cars whose license plates could not be seen.
The detective then sought a geofence warrant from a Superior Court judge that asked Google for location data for six designated spots on the morning of the murder.
That led to the identification of Daniel Meza and Walter Meneses, who pleaded guilty to the crimes. A California Court of Appeal rejected their 4th Amendment claim in 2023, even though the judges said they had legal doubts about the “novelty of the particular surveillance technique at issue.”
The Supreme Court has also been split on how to apply the 4th Amendment to new types of surveillance.
By a 5-4 vote, the court in 2018 ruled the FBI should have obtained a search warrant before it required a cellphone company to turn over 127 days of records for Timothy Carpenter, a suspect in a series of store robberies in Michigan.
The data confirmed Carpenter was nearby when four of the stores were robbed.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, joined by four liberal justices, said this lengthy surveillance violated privacy rights protected by the 4th Amendment.
But he described the Carpenter decision as “narrow” because it turned on the many weeks of surveillance data.
In dissent, four conservatives questioned how tracking someone’s driving violates their privacy. Surveillance cameras and license plate readers are commonly used by investigators and have rarely been challenged.
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer relies on that argument in his defense of Chatrie’s conviction. “An individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in movements that anyone could see,” he wrote.
The justices will issue a decision by the end of June.
