When Michael Nixon pulled the trigger on the handgun he was carrying last May, he robbed Khalief Webster Jr. of his future, Webster’s family of a loving son, and the community of any semblance of safety, Webster’s mother said Tuesday in a crowded Delaware County courtroom.
“Khalief was not just the headlines, not just the crime scene tape that haunts me through the night, not just a victim,” Talaya Shaw said of her 17-year-old son. “Khalief was a young boy growing into a young man with a heart bigger than this world could handle.”
And Nixon, she told Judge Deborah Krull, “had no God-given right to decide when and how he left this world.”
For killing Webster, Nixon, 18, of Upper Darby, was sentenced to 18 to 36 years in state prison. Nixon pleaded guilty to third-degree murder earlier this year for the fatal shooting, which unfolded in May 2025 as the two teens, classmates at Upper Darby High School, crossed paths on Long Lane near Pine Street.
Emotions and tempers flared during Nixon’s hours-long sentencing, which the judge had to pause multiple times to rein in outbursts from those who filled the standing-room-only courtroom. Webster’s friends and relatives screamed to be heard, calling Nixon a coward, among other insults, and demanding justice.
Sheriff’s deputies barred more people from entering the hearing, and had to respond to a scuffle that erupted outside the courthouse after Nixon’s sentence was handed down.
In May 2025, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Tim Bernhardt (center) announced the arrest of Michael Nixon for the murder of Khalief Webster.Vinny Vella / Staff
On the day of the shooting, Webster was riding a miniature dirt bike when he encountered Nixon, who had walked 25 minutes from his own neighborhood to the area, according to investigators.
What happened next was the subject of debate during Tuesday’s hearing.
Nixon’s attorney, Pete Manaras, said Webster asked his client if he was the “young boul” he had seen “the other day,” and got off the bike to confront him.
The two teens, he said, knew each other and had gotten into disputes before. Nixon, fearing for his safety, shot Webster in the abdomen, Manaras said.
But Senior Deputy Attorney General Christopher Phillips, who prosecuted the case, said Nixon was the aggressor. He was out looking for Webster, Phillips said, armed and lying in wait in an area where he knew he would encounter the other teen.
“The public needs to be protected from people that would do such a thing on a sunny afternoon, on a beautiful May day, to a young man who didn’t see it coming,” Phillips said.
After the shooting, Nixon fled and was recorded on a surveillance camera telling someone on a phone call that he had shot somebody in the chest, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. Nixon’s mother then picked him up and drove him away.
Nixon addressed Webster’s family Tuesday to apologize, saying he wished he could take back what had occurred.
“I didn’t want to kill him. I never wanted to hurt him,” Nixon said. “I was just scared and my body reacted before my mind.”
Nixon said he encountered Webster by chance. He was carrying the gun because of previous run-ins with him, he said, and needed it for protection as he walked to a friend’s house.
Webster grabbed at his waistband as he confronted him, Nixon said. He believed Webster was reaching for a gun and reacted.
Nixon said he had grown up in an abusive household and that made him “perceive everything as a threat” and grow anxious when people get too close to him.
“I’m not saying this as an excuse for my actions, because I know I deserve to be locked up for what I did,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to turn my life around, because I do.”
Webster’s relatives, including his grandmother, Charlotte Webster, said that while they have not yet forgiven Nixon, they know that will come in time through their faith.
Still, she said, the pain Nixon caused their family was devastating.
“I believe this was a deliberate, heinous crime he committed,” she said. “He didn’t care about anything or anyone.”
Abigail Tuttle O’Keeffe, 55, the former owner of Narrow Way Farm, entered guilty pleas to aggravated cruelty to animals, neglect of animals, and related crimes late last month. She was spared from prison by entering a diversionary program, prosecutors said Monday. O’Keeffe must attend substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, and is barred from owning animals.
Her attorney, Josh Buchanan, declined to comment Monday.
In August 2024, the Bucks County SPCA served a search warrant on O’Keeffe’s property after a farm manager notified the agency that a sheep had been found dead, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest.
Abigail Tuttle O’Keeffe was extradited to Bucks County in September 2025 by the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force. In this photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service, her face was obscured.U.S. Marshals Service
Officers rescued more than 100 pigs, goats, and sheep, many suffering from infections, parasites, and other chronic medical conditions. One severely emaciated goat died while investigators were searching the property. Another one was so malnourished and riddled with parasites that it had to be euthanized after weeks of intensive care, the affidavit said.
Volunteers at Narrow Way who spoke with The Inquirer in 2024 said O’Keeffe, who holds a doctorate in developmental psychology, did not have the skills to match her ambitions of running a working farm.
Most of O’Keeffe’s workforce also had little to no farm experience, and the 36-acre property was in disarray, to the detriment of the livestock she kept there, according to some of those volunteers.
In one incident, workers botched the dehorning of a calf, leaving the animal with permanent nerve damage.
Word of the conditions at Narrow Way spread quickly: The owner of a nearby farm said O’Keeffe was not “a real, active farmer,” shied away from the work that required of her, and ran the operation like a cult, comparing her farmhands to “disciples.”
But when local investigators came to the farm, O’Keeffe was thousands of miles away. Prosecutors said she moved to Belize, where she was arrested in April 2025 on gun charges.
U.S. Marshals extradited her to Bucks County months later.
Staff Writer Jesse Bunch contributed to this article.
Hours before Mohamed Coulibaly was found dead in his Gloucester County home, one of his alleged victims said, the 23-year-old entrepreneur had been desperately seeking a $75,000 loan.
A recent Barron’s investigation alleged Coulibaly defrauded three former NFL players out of $1 million in an e-commerce scheme involving fake Shopify stores. Now others who invested in the venture or lent Coulibaly money were blowing up his phone. They wanted to know if Jalen Carter and several former members of the Eagles, including Nakobe Dean and Terrell Edmunds, were even real clients, a claim Coulibaly made on promotional materials.
Above all, these people wanted their money back.
The morning of his death, July 31, Coulibaly solicited money from a New York man, who agreed to speak with The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity to protect his family’s privacy. He is one of at least 10 people, including the three former NFL players, alleging Coulibaly scammed them out of more than $5 million through phony investments over the last year.
Coulibaly, who lived in Mullica Hill, a section of Harrison Township, promised to send a Lamborghini, two gold Rolexes, and a signed Lionel Messi cleat as collateral for what was to be a weeklong loan.
Coulibaly still owed the man $1 million for a bridge loan due in March. Yet he insisted the additional loan somehow would make it possible to return the initial money owed. His alleged victim said he figured he could only gain from the arrangement — if the collateral proved to be real.
But a driver — not in a Lamborghini — arrived at his doorstep with two fake watches, an unauthenticated signed cleat, along with an insurance card and a bill of sale for the promised luxe car, according to the man.
The man called off the loan.
“[Coulibaly] then started to cry hysterical on the phone,” the victim said. “He said, ‘I’ve lost it all, please help me here, please help me here.’”
Coulibaly was found dead later that day.
Mohamed Coulibaly attends Milan Fashion Week on Jan. 19 in Milan, Italy.Dave Benett/Getty Images
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office is leading the investigation into Coulibaly’s death and declined to comment. No charges have been filed in connection to the alleged scams Coulibaly is accused of spearheading.
Coulibaly’s death has only added a layer of uncertainty for his allegedly defrauded clients, who now believe they were unwitting participants in a Ponzi scheme. New so-called investments went toward paying off other clients. But the chain could not be sustained.
“In terms of his death, it sounds rather brash or harsh, but the only reason I’m upset for his passing is that he’s not able to go to jail and suffer,” the bridge loan investor said.
The Inquirer spoke with four victims, all but one of whom asked to remain anonymous citing lingering shame, privacy concerns, and, in one case, safety considerations. They provided alleged contracts Coulibaly gave them, text messages, screenshots of their purported Shopify store sales, and a whistleblower report sent to federal and Pennsylvania financial regulators.
In hindsight, the business always seemed too good to be true. The young entrepreneur convinced them they could rake in millions each month selling vacuums, printers, desktop humidifiers, and silicone trays on Shopify, an e-commerce platform similar to Amazon.
At first, investors said they had no reason to question Vent Motion LLC, also known as Motion Venture. Shopify alerted the victims to a steady stream of sales through their phone apps.
But at least two Shopify stores victims bought into were fake, full of transactions a Barron’s analysis suggests are also a sham. Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
The alleged victims say Coulibaly lured them in by highlighting purported investor relationships with wealthy and connected people. His pitch deck listed several former members of the Eagles and the NBA as clients. Representatives for the current and former Eagles declined to comment or could not be reached.
“A selling point [Coulibaly] gave me was, ‘Hey, we only have about 90 to 100 people in this,’ insinuating you can make it behind the velvet rope because everybody involved is celebrities or athletes, and this is just a venture they do,” said another of the defrauded investors, requesting anonymity because family and friends do not know about the scam.
Yet as more victims have found one another in the wake of Coulibaly’s death, it has become clearer the scheme was not limited to targeting NFL players.
It involved everyday investors from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New York who now want to know if any of it was real.
A ‘magnetic’ man with the digital footprint of a business phenom
Coulibaly knew how to sell the image of a successful entrepreneur.
His story always hit the same beats: Coulibaly was a professional soccer player. He made $4 million reselling rare sneakers before he turned 21. His success was largely attributed to “building connections” with athletes and influencers. Grinding was the key to success.
But much of that was embellished.
A database for American high school sports coverage noted Coulibaly played soccer for Roxborough High School.
Coulibaly said he began his professional career with the New York Red Bulls soccer team, but a spokesperson said Coulibaly never had a contract.
A friend from Coulibaly’s days at Temple University said the sneaker venture Heatkickcity was also a scam that swindled students out of thousands. He asked not to be named out of safety concerns, saying Coulibaly often touted relationships with gang-affiliated people.
While Coulibaly told publications he was born in Mali, West Africa, and immigrated to the United States at a young age, while in college, he often intimated that he was a trust fund child and that his parents worked for the French government, the Temple friend said.
He added that may have helped induce so many of their peers to pay a $1,200 membership for monthly access to rare sneakers that ultimately never came.
“He’d be like, ‘It’s stuck in shipping,’ or ‘my assistant forgot to order them,’ or ‘my assistant’s slacking,’ and then he would just keep on extending it, extending it,” said the friend. “If you questioned him in any way, shape, or form about the product that you paid for, then he would switch to angry mode.”
The friend eventually got his money back after pressuring him for weeks but said Coulibaly continued his self-proclaimed pursuit of becoming a billionaire.
“He scammed his best friends,” the friend said. “Nobody was off-limits.”
Coulibaly’s next venture was fashion line Motion Apparelz. It was profiled in Forbes last year, where the author describes Coulibaly’s energy as “magnetic.” In the piece, Coulibaly name-drops artist friends, including rapper YG, who was later listed as an investor in Motion Venture promotional materials.
Rapper YG performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in 2019.Amy Harris
YG’s agent could not be reached for comment.
Outside of the glowing profiles, a now-defunct Instagram account also detailed a lavish lifestyle full of run-ins with celebrities, boat jaunts on luxury yachts with city skylines in the background, and snapshots of Coulibaly in or in front of private planes. Often, Coulibaly could be seen wearing gold watches, what appear to be Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets, and diamond-studded chains.
Coulibaly’s digital footprint set the stage for an even bigger business pitch.
A business promising exorbitant returns
When it came to Vent Motion LLC, Coulibaly told clients he operated “factories in China and India with a combined team of 125 full-time employees,” according to a pitch deck he showed investors that was obtained by The Inquirer.
This allowed stores to operate without keeping any inventory and reducing overhead — a model known as drop-shipping.
The savings from eliminating the middlemen, he said, could then be reinvested into artificial intelligence-driven ads and “influencer amplification” to drum up more customers. Coulibaly’s company would set up and manage the Shopify stores on behalf of investors, pushing out additional advertising or swapping out products if sales slowed.
Clients would be charged a 20% to 25% service fee for that work, and even so, Coulibaly dangled extraordinary returns for those who joined the venture.
One Shopify store that began with a $550,000 investment in January 2024 had allegedly generated $2 million in revenue in April and a whopping $23 million in July of that year. By August, this particular store had generated a total of $84 million in revenue, according to the company’s unsubstantiated pitch deck.
Further sweetening the deal was an initial investment “protection” guarantee if their store did not generate profit within six months.
Former Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim says he was just as much of victim of Mohammed Coulibaly’s alleged scam.Darryl Webb
It’s what got Steve Keim, former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, into the business.
Keim said he met Coulibaly through mutual Eagles acquaintances and by August 2025 he had bought his first Shopify store, which was recording sales at a pace that had him on track totriple his investment over six months. Keim bought into six more stores the following month, he said. His son and ex-wife would also buy into the business for at least a $1 million investment between all three.
Keim said he was soon offered the role of chief operating officer/chief growth officer, which he now sees as a way for Coulibaly to “legitimize his business.”
“I introduced him to people to sell stores to and that sort of thing,” said Keim, who describes fulfilling a figurehead role with no decision-making power. “He called me the COO but he also made promises to give me health insurance and to have some kind of bonus structure.”
The health insurance, bonuses, and exorbitant returns never materialized. Keim said he never had access to bank records and was never made aware of how many people gave money to Motion Venture. But by the start of the year, Keim claims, a flood of disgruntled investors were asking him for help getting their money back. Around this time, Keim said, he asked Coulibaly to stop using his name in promotional materials and told him he no longer wanted to be COO.
Keim contended he was as much of a victim as anyone else, holding onto hope that he could recover his money until Coulibaly’s death.
“This went downhill fast,” he said. “Not only did I get my name drug through the mud, I lost a lot of money since I was an investor.”
A Dubai deal
As more investors were demanding access to their Shopify funds in the fall, Coulibaly was telling them that the Dubai firm Middle East Venture Partners was interested in buying the operation for $215 million.
All they had to do was reach 175 online stores and meet other benchmarks by Aug. 1.
To back his claim Coulibaly produced a letter of intent dated Aug. 14, 2024.
Troubling for investors: The letter was dated more than a month before the company was registered in Pennsylvania.
The discrepancy was the biggest red flag for Barry Minkow, a convicted fraudster who now investigates scams on behalf of fraud victims. He started poking around the company at the start of the year for an investor who had put up $150,000.
“So here you are looking at a private equity company saying they’re going to buy up this company that doesn’t even exist for $200 million?” Minkow said in disbelief.
Middle East Venture Partners did not respond to an email to asking if a relationship existed with Coulibaly’s Vent Motion LLC.
With the permission of three of the alleged victims, Minkow submitted a 23-page whistleblower report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI, and Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The report laid out victim accounts and flagged glaring issues with Motion Venture’s business model.
Minkow warned regulators in February thatintervention was essential to “halt ongoing solicitations, trace misallocated funds,” and stressed the importance of doing so “before the scheme inflicts further, irreparable harm.”
Minkow would prove to be right. Motion Venture was still actively recruiting new investors that month.
Picking up the pieces
Coulibaly’s college friend thinks he might have been one of the first victims of the Shopify sometime about three years ago. It involved less paperwork back then, more of a handshake deal. The friend put in $5,000 in a store with an investment protection promise in place, he said. Unlike that time in college, however, the friend only got half his money back.
The friendship with Coulibaly cooled after that.
“People just keep on saying he scammed NFL players,” said Coulibaly’s college friend. “No, anybody with money could be scammed, no matter how small.”
Coulibaly would insist money issues were the Dubai firm’s fault until his death, according to his alleged victims who shared screenshots and voice memos of conversations.
He ricocheted from distraught, lamenting the financial ruin that awaited him if he did not acquire more investors, to defiant, celebrating the Philadelphia 76ers’ LeBron James trade on X as he dodged investors.
When Keim and another investor flew into Philadelphia to meet with Coulibaly in late July, they spent a day and a half trying to figure out how much money was left, to no avail.
It was around that time that Coulibaly was soliciting the New York man for the $75,000 loan.
Coulibaly’s last post on X was a reshare a day before his death. “Trying to be everyone’s friend is a foolish behavior,” it read.
Whether any investor money remains is unclear. A now-defunct GoFundMe page put together by a man claiming to be Coulibaly’s brother raised more than $12,000 for the body’s “international transportation arrangements.”
Investors are also trying to figure out what legal recourse they might have, if any.
Coulibaly’s death has shattered any last remaining hope some victims had that a Dubai firm was to blame for cash-flow issues, and they are now seeking legal help.
It also left them feeling cheated one last time.
Staff writer Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
The parents of a 7-week-old girl were charged with aggravated assault and related offenses after an examination at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia revealed the infant had been seriously injured, police said Monday.
Secret McCleve-Sar, 21, and Tyrone Jones, 22, both of the 2500 block of North Front Street, were arrested on Sunday and also charged with kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, endangering the welfare of a child, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and obstructing justice, police said.
Bail for each was set at 10% of $1 million and both were still in custody on Monday, court records show.
A court-appointed lawyer for McCleve-Sar declined to comment on the case. The Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is representing Jones, also could not be reached for comment.
On Saturday shortly after 6:30 a.m. police responded to CHOP for a report of a prior assault involving the infant girl.
The girl had initially been taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital by her parents and then was transferred to CHOP, police said. The parents allegedly left the hospital with their infant prior to receiving the results of the medical evaluation.
The investigation remains ongoing by the Special Victims Unit.
Chester County authorities believe that the shooting death of a woman in East Goshen Township on Friday was a suicide and that a 9-year-old girl also was wounded by gunfire.
“The child who was shot continues to recover from her injuries. As we announced on Friday, this was an isolated incident and there was no threat to the general public,” the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Monday.
Police were dispatched just before 11 a.m. to the Summit House condominium complex on West Chester Pike for a reported shooting. Inside the unit, the officers found the woman, described only as in her 40s, dead from a single gunshot wound.
The girl was treated at the scene by paramedics and was alert and able to speak, said Chief David Leahy of the Westtown-East Goshen Police Department.
Police found a gun not far from the woman’s body.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said the girl was struck by the same bullet that killed the woman.
Six people were killed in Philadelphia between Friday morning and Sunday night — five shot and one stabbed — in a wave of violence across the city, according to police.
At least two others were wounded in the spate of attacks, a jarring stretch of violence in a year that has otherwise been among the least deadly Philadelphia has recorded in decades.
At a news conference on Monday, District Attorney Larry Krasner acknowledged the weekend’s toll but pointed to the city’s steep drop in killings, arguing that a brutal few days had not erased months of historic progress.
“We had a bad weekend,” Krasner said. “We’re not having a bad year.”
As of Monday, Krasner said, there had been 108 homicides so far this year in the city — 29 fewer than at the same time last year.
Even so, the six deaths amounted to more than 5% of the city’s homicides this year, a striking toll for a single weekend. The victims ranged in age from 26 to 70.
The bloodshed began shortly after 9 a.m. Friday, when officers responded to a report of a gunman on the 2100 block of North 20th Street in North Philadelphia West and found Savion Young, 31, shot in the chest and arm. He was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital about 20 minutes later, police said.
That same evening, Felix Serrano, 70, was found shot inside a BMW on the 4300 block of North Seventh Street in Hunting Park, according to police. Investigators believe Serrano’s vehicle may have traveled a short distance after he was shot before his car struck a parked vehicle. He was also pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital.
The killings resumed before dawn Sunday. At about 3:20 a.m., police who were called to the 800 block of West Oxford Street in Ludlow found Rafi Colón-White, 30, shot in the head inside a Subaru Outback.
Colón-White was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital. A 34-year-old man who arrived separately at the hospital with gunshot wounds to his legs was in critical condition, police said. That man, whom police have not identified, was also a victim in the shooting, said police spokesperson Cpl. Jasmine Colón-Reilly.
Sunday evening brought three more killings in as many hours. About 8:20 p.m., a man was fatally stabbed on the 500 block of West Courtland Street in Logan, and pronounced dead at Einstein Medical Center, police said. He has not been publicly identified.
Less than an hour later, DaJuan Coffee, 26, was shot multiple times on the 2000 block of East Lehigh Avenue in East Kensington and pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital, police said.
The weekend’s final killing came at about 11:49 p.m. Sunday. Officers sent to the 2800 block of North 24th Street in Strawberry Mansion for a report of a person with a gun found Michelle Wilson, 61, on a porch, shot in the neck and back, police said. She was pronounced dead moments later.
Wilson’s husband was also on the porch and was shot, but survived, police said. They did not share the man’s condition, but said he was stable.
Loved ones lingered on the sidewalk in front of the North 24th Street house Monday afternoon, hugging, trying to find comfort in one another amid their grief. They declined to be interviewed.
A 71-year-old neighbor said the family has lived on the block for decades.
“They were quiet people,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. On Sunday afternoon, she said, Wilson’s family had a barbecue, with children and extended family playing on the porch.
Surveillance video from a business on the block, reviewed by The Inquirer, showed a man wearing a hat and surgical face mask walking down the street when he appeared to take a black handgun from his bag and slip it into his jacket. The video showed him then calmly walk up to the porch and open fire.
Police have not shared the video with the public, nor identified the man captured in it as a suspect.
Nearby, on North 20th Street, an array of candles, stuffed teddy bears, and handwritten posters lay Monday across the sidewalk where Young was killed Friday morning.
Police said Young and his girlfriend were arguing outside the apartment around 9:10 a.m. when the woman’s 16-year-old brother pulled a gun and shot Young multiple times, police said. He died at the hospital.
The teen is wanted for murder.
Tributes for Young, also known as Apex, poured across social media over the weekend, and hundreds gathered in North Philadelphia for a balloon release.
Young had a daughter and large family scattered across the city, friends said. He had just started a clothing brand called Bad English, and neighbors said he was frequently seen lifting weights and working out outside his rowhouse.
“This was his Planet Fitness,” a man who trained with him said Monday on the block. The man, who declined to give his name for privacy reasons, looked down at the dozens of candles melting into the sidewalk beneath a collection of silver balloons. “He will be truly missed,” he said.
William Fritze, chief of the district attorney’s office Gun Violence Task Force, declined to provide additional information on the incidents, citing ongoing investigations.
No arrests have been made in any of the cases, said Colón-Reilly. Police are asking anyone with information to contact the department’s homicide unit at 215-686-3334, or its tip line at 215-686-TIPS.
Last year marked Philadelphia’s fewest homicides in nearly six decades, with 222 people killed. The last time the city’s homicide numbers fell below that mark was in 1966, when there were 178 murders.
During Monday’s news conference, called to announce grants awarded to more than 20 anti-violence organizations in the city, Krasner called the weekend’s violence a tragedy that “no one would ever celebrate,” even as he stressed that the city remained far safer than in years past.
“The facts are clear: Homicides are way down,” he said. “In almost every category, crime is down.”
A Lancaster County man pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding investors in his ATM businesses out of more than $400 million, a long-running scam that federal authorities have characterized as a Ponzi scheme.
Daryl Heller, 56, of Lititz, was indicted last year after prosecutors said he deceived thousands of people who had invested in several businesses he owned that he used to buy and operate ATMs.
As he sought to raise money for his firms, prosecutors said, Heller promised investors guaranteed monthly returns, which he said would be the result of operating the ATMs. And he also courted investors by using forged or fraudulent financial documents to inflate the purported health of his businesses, prosecutors said.
Once Heller got cash infusions, prosecutors said, he used them to pay back old investors. He also spent some of the money on personal expenses or business debts.
The scheme began to fall apart in 2023, when one of his companies, Paramount Management Group, began struggling to raise new money. Several months later, prosecutors said, Paramount stopped making payments to its older investors.
Heller later filed for bankruptcy protection — which remains pending — and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia indicted him last August.
In all, prosecutors said, Heller raised about $770 million from 2,700 people between 2017 and 2024, causing his investors to lose about $400 million. (Heller’s attorneys said Monday that they don’t agree with that number and plan to dispute it in court before he is sentenced.)
Heller said little in court beyond responding to routine legal questions while pleading guilty to a securities fraud charge. He declined to comment after the hearing.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Henry is scheduled to sentence Heller in December. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
A 61-year-old woman was shot and killed in North Philadelphia after a shooting Sunday night.
Philadelphia Police Department officers responded to the 2800 block of N. 24th Street around 11:49 p.m. for a report of a person with a gun. Officers found Michelle Wilson, 61, on a porch suffering from gunshot wounds to the neck and back. Wilson was transported to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 12:04 a.m. on Monday.
A second person, a 67-year-old man, was found on the same porch suffering from gunshot wounds to his backside. Police transported the man to Temple University Hospital and was placed in stable condition.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Homicide Unit at 215-686-3334 or call the PPD tip line at 215-686-8477. As with all homicides in the city of Philadelphia, there is a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
This section of North Philadelphia has already experienced two fatal shootings this summer in June, according to the most recent data supplied by the City Controller, and in that same month, a 16-year-old was shot and injured one block from where Sunday night’s shooting occurred.
According to police, at least seven shootings occurred this past weekend, including the fatal shooting of 70-year-old Felix Serrano, who was found shot in the chest while sitting in his car near Hunting Park.
The father of a Philadelphia man who was killed in an ATV crash this spring said police officers pursued his son moments before he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, ran a red light, and collided with a sedan.
Sterling Jones, 22, was killed on May 9 after the crash in North Philadelphia, according to police.
Lawyers for Jones’ father, Sterling Lamont Jones Sr., said his son and a group of friends had been riding off-road vehicles near Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue when officers from the police ATV and dirt bike detail spotted the young men popping wheelies and began a pursuit.
They followed Jones up Broad Street to West Thompson Street, the attorneys said. There he briefly sped in the wrong direction down the one-way street and ran a red light before striking an Uber driver’s Toyota sedan at the intersection as it turned onto 15th Street.
He was taken to Temple University Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Sterling Jones Sr., 57, has since hired a team of attorneys to investigate the incident. Late last month, they filed a notice of intent to sue the city, alleging that the officers and the department violated Jones’ constitutional rights when they chased him and caused his fatal injuries.
Sterling Jones, a 22-year-old who lawyers say was killed in an ATV crash after being chased by police officers.Courtesy of Sterling Lamont Jones Sr.
Riding ATVs and dirt bikes on public streets in Philadelphia is against the law, and police have increased efforts to crack down on that behavior in recent years.
But the incident raises questions about whether the officers followed a department directive barring vehicular pursuits for all but the most serious offenses — a policy enacted because of the public safety risks posed by such chases, particularly in densely populated areas.
The initial police account of the incident did not mention that officers had been pursuing Jones before the crash. It could not be learned whether the department had since concluded that officers were engaged in a pursuit and whether it was conducted a high rate of speed, as the lawyers contend.
Sgt. Eric Gripp, a police spokesperson, said the incident is under investigation by the department’s internal affairs bureau. He declined to comment further, referring questions to the city’s law department.
A spokesperson for the law department said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
Surveillance footage gathered by lawyers for Jones’ father and viewed by The Inquirer showed at least eight police officers on dirt bikes, a squad car, and a tow vehicle tailing Jones that evening.
Around 9:23 p.m., Jones was seen cutting through a Sunoco gas station and speeding down West Thompson Street with dirt bike officers close behind. Within seconds, his ATV careened into the driver’s side of the sedan.
Under police department policy, vehicular chases are allowed only in situations in which officers believe they can prevent imminent danger to others, or if a suspect is either fleeing after committing a violent felony or in possession of a deadly weapon used in a crime.
And while riding off-road vehicles violates city code, attorneys for Sterling Jones Sr. say that type of infraction still should not trigger a police chase.
“The police department’s policy is, in our view, clearly violated,” said Thomas Kline of Kline & Specter, which is handling the case alongside the firm Hill & Associates.
A 2025 Inquirer investigation found police in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania were conducting hazardous and unnecessary chases, disproportionately endangering young people. Roughly half of all reported pursuits conducted by city police were not justified under department policy, the investigation found.
A police department spokesperson attributed the increase in chases to the COVID-era surge in violent crime, and said the department investigates every crash for policy violations.
Between 2020 and last year, records show, the city had paid out $20 million in crash- or chase-related settlements as a result of such chases.
In 2017, a 6-year-old girl and her great-aunt were seriously injured when they were struck by a dirt bike rider who was being chased by Philadelphia police into Upper Darby Township. The city settled a lawsuit with their attorneys for nearly $3 million last year.
Sterling Jones Sr. said that while he was planning to sue, no amount of money could make up for the loss of his son.
The young man was a graduate of Hunting Park Christian Academy and had been working for two years as a delivery driver for the U.S. Postal Service before his death. He had bought the ATV with money from that job, his father said.
“He wasn’t a criminal. He had a license,” he said.
Jones Sr. learned of the crash in the early morning of Mother’s Day, when his son’s mother came to his house to tell him Jones was dead.
He said he hired lawyers with the aim of ensuring that the officers who pursued his son would be reprimanded and removed from the beat.
“They killed my only son,” he said. “I just want justice.”
A Delaware County man who previously got in trouble for leaving lewd and threatening voicemails for U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean pleaded guilty Wednesday to stalking a Philadelphia TV news personality.
Stephen M. Cilurso, 73, of Aldan, admitted to one count of stalking by use of the mail and one count of witness tampering before U.S. District Judge Gail A. Weilheimer in Philadelphia federal court.
Cilurso mentioned the man’s children by name in several of his threatening letters, according to the memorandum for Cilurso’s plea deal with prosecutors.
Even after Cilurso was contacted in March by law enforcement about the harassment, he continued to send letters to the TV personality — but this time he was asking the victim to help get the criminal investigation dropped, the memo said.
Cilurso reportedly did the same with Dean (D., Montgomery).
He was charged in 2021 with making threatening and lewd calls to Dean’s office because she was involved with the impeachment of Donald Trump, whom he supported in 2020. At one point, he mentioned Dean’s daughter by name.
After police began to investigate the calls, Cilurso left additional messages apologizing for his behavior and begging Dean to tell detectives to stop the investigation.
Cilurso pleaded guilty in the Dean case and was sentenced to probation, court records show.
In January, Cilurso was arrested for allegedly making threats to New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill when she was a member of Congress.
On Thursday, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that Cilurso pleaded guilty in March to one count of fourth-degree stalking in the Sherrill case. His sentence is pending.
In the Philadelphia case, Cilurso mailed his first letter in 2019 and included homophobic comments and mentioned that he had just seen the victim with his kids.
Cilurso continued mentioning the victim’s children in subsequent letters as well as the victim’s spouse, prosecutors said.
He also threatened to release snakes around the victim’s home.
“Regarding why the snake letters were mailed, the defendant stated he saw a news segment where Victim 1 revealed on the air that he is deathly afraid of snakes,” the plea memorandum said.
“The defendant thought Victim 1’s fear of snakes was funny, so he began mailing threatening communications to Victim 1 indicating he was planning to release snakes at Victim 1’s residential property,” the memo said.
In a September 2025 letter, Cilurso again used homophobic slurs and mentioned the victim’s spouse. At the end of the letter, according to the memo, Cilurso wrote: “I hope what happened to Charlie Kirk happens to you.”
The victim received that letter about a week after Kirk, a conservative activist, was fatally shot on Sept. 10.
Prosecutors said the victim felt as if his life was in imminent danger after receiving that letter and installed security cameras around his house. He also contacted Philadelphia police, who then notified the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
After being interviewed by law enforcement in March, Cilurso sent additional letters to the man, but was now asking for his help to stop the investigation.
“I am the 73 year old scumbag who wrote you” the letters, Cilruso wrote, according to the memo.
The plea memo said Cilurso begged for the victim to “help me out of this nightmare. Please ask the FBI to drop any future charges against me … I will donate a monetary amount to your favorite charity on your behalf … [D]on’t let me go to jail again and be away from my 3 remaining cats. I love my cats as you love your [children],” he wrote, again using their actual names.
In a side note, the agents confirmed that Cilurso owned three cats.
In another letter, Cilurso admitted that an agent had come to his house and told him to stop communicating with the victim, the memo said.
In his last letter in March, according to the memo, Cilurso wrote: “I know that I told you that I would not write you again, but things have changed and not for the better for me.”
Cilurso described health problems he claimed he had, and said he would take his own life and the lives of his cats rather than go back to jail, the memo said.
