Her father was preparing to cheer her at her college graduation next week - but instead, he’s mourning daughter Paige Aiello, the missing New Jersey student whose body was identified by police Thursday.
“The search is over,” said the 21-year-old’s father Christopher Aiello, his voice quivering.
The beautiful College of New Jersey student went missing on April 9 — two days before her 22nd birthday, officials said.
Cops believe Aiello jumped from the George Washington Bridge because they found her purse, cell phone and car keys were found on the span’s south walkway.
The body ultimately washed up near E. 158th St. in Washington Heights at around 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, officials said.
In the nearly month-long search for Paige, her father had accepted she took her own life — but when three women escaped a hell house in Cleveland, he started considering an alternative scenario.
“Someone could have kidnapped her and put her bag on the bridge,” he said. “I kept thinking that someone had her and the horrors that could be happening to her.”
Paige Aiello seemed to have everything to live for. The co-captain of her school tennis team, she had been accepted to nine law schools.
“We don’t know of any precipitating event,” he said. “But high achieving kids have this self-imposed stress. In Paige’s case it came on very quick.”
Aiello said his daughter’s burial won’t be for more than a week out of respect for her classmates graduating next Thursday, her father said.
“We don’t want to do anything to upset these young people,” said Aiello. “They should be enjoying themselves and reveling in their graduation.”
Eight foot soldiers of an international cyber-crime ring have been charged in a staggering ripoff of ATMs that netted $45 million worldwide, law enforcement officials said Thursday.
“Instead of using masks and guns, this cyber-crime organization used laptops and malware," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said.
The caper marked the biggest theft of bank cash in the city since the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist of $5.8 million at Kennedy Airport.
Officials said the Yonkers-based “cashing crew” was activated on both Dec. 22 and Feb. 19 by computer hackers overseas to carry out a series of highly sophisticated, coordinated withdrawals of $2.8 million from hundreds of bank machines in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens until all the cash was gone.
Their counterparts were simultaneously ripping off ATMs in 24 countries around the world, while their hacker superiors carefully monitored the withdrawal activity.
Lynch likened the thieves to a “virtual flash mob” that fanned out in the city with fraudulent debit cards.
The first cyber-attack targeted pre-paid Master Card debit cards issued by the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. The second invasion penetrated computers of Bank of Muscat in Oman.
The hackers obtained debit card data, eliminated withdrawal limits on the accounts, created access codes and then sent a network of operatives out to withdraw money in multiple cities in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia, authorities said.
Investigators have seized cell phone photos of the thieves posing with piles of cash.
“They seemed star-struck themselves by the amount of money they had looted," Lynch said.
The reputed ringleader of the New York crew, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena, was murdered in the Dominican Republic on April 27.
Named in the indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court are Jael Mejia Collado, 23, Joan Luis Minier Lara, 22, Evan Pena, 35, Jose Familia Reyes, 24, Elvis Rodriguez, 24, Emir Yeje, 24 and Chung Yu-Holguin, 22, all of Yonkers.
Two of the defendants are school bus drivers in New York City, a source said.
The withdrawals were fast and furious. In New York, the crew grabbed nearly $400,000 in 700 transactions during the December attack, according to court papers. The February attack reaped $2.4 million from 3,000 bank withdrawals over a 10-hour spree.
After kicking up a share to the hackers, the crew purchased Rolex watches, a Porsche sedan and a Mercedes Benz SUV.
ATM surveillance camera photos show Reyes at multiple bank windows and depict his backpack getting fuller as it is filled with cash.
Officials refused to discuss the ongoing investigation of the computer hackers, but noted they do not appear to be based in the U.S.
בלי עירום חלקי ואווירת סקס-און-דה-ביץ' נוסח ה"ספורטס אילוסטרייטד" (וגם בלי בר רפאלי, מה לעשות) - מצטלם קטלוג בגדי ים לדתיות וחרדיות, הכולל כיסויי ראש, ילדים והמון צניעות. הלוקיישן: חצר בית פרטי בשכונת כפר גנים שבפתח תקווה, מעוז דתי בורגני לאלה שמקפידים על תעודת הכשר לכל מה שיש לחיים הטובים להציע.
המעצבת אמנדה קרמר מאסה בחלוקים האפורים שבחוף שרתון (הנפרד), והחליטה להכניס קצת שיק בביקיני, או בעצם – בדוסיקיני. אז הכירו את המותג החדש, שבא גם עם כיסויי ראש תואמים, סטייל כובע ים, אבל לא בדיוק.
אף מעצב חילוני לא רצה להיכנס לתחום
מאז המצאת הביקיני, אי-אז בתחילת שנות החמישים - נראה שהעולם הולך ומתערטל. כל שנשאר לדוסית הממוצעת, בעשורים שחלפו מאז, הוא לעטות על עצמה בגבורה חולצת טי-שרט דהויה מכלור, או - בגרסה החרדית יותר - חלוק חסר צורה, שהופך למטען חורג ומסוכן ממש במגע עם מים.
עד לבשורת בגדי הים הצנועים, זה היה גורלה של כל "סרבנית חשיפה" באשר היא - חילונית או דתייה. קרמר, מעצבת טקסטיל רב-תחומית, שהופכת כבר שנים כל צורך דתי למותג אסטטי ועדכני, עשתה לבגדי הים את מה שחוללה לכיסויי הראש, הטליתות ואף הנרתיקים לטלית.
"פניתי לפני כשנה לכמה יצרנים, וביקשתי מהם לעשות את זה עצמאית, בלי קשר אלי", מספרת קרמר, "אבל אף אחד לא רצה להרים את הכפפה. זה היה נראה להם מוזר, והם לא חשבו שיהיה ביקוש. בשלב מסוים אמרתי, 'אם הם לא רוצים, אז אני אעשה בעצמי".
קרמר היא בין המעצבים הבודדים שזיהו את הפוטנציאל הטמון בבגדי הים הצנועים, מגמה שהחלה לצבור תאוצה בשלוש השנים האחרונות, ומתפרסת בעונה הנוכחית על פני מנעד רחב: החל בחליפות גלישה מלאות - עם חצאית ארוכה מעל - ועד לקולקציה של קרמר, הכוללת גם גרסאות מרוככות, עם שרוולים קצרים ומחשוף קל.
תמונות הדגמים שהעלתה אשתקד לדף הפייסבוק של המותג שלה, Amanda K, הפכו ללהיט. "נשים פשוט היו נלהבות, לא תיארתי לעצמי שהחוסר הוא עד כדי כך גדול", קרמר מספרת. "מהר מאוד הנפקתי קולקציה נוספת עוד באותה העונה, וגם היא אזלה כמעט מיד".
אם לא לים, לבית הכנסת
יש מי שהולכת מהחוף עם הביקיני ישר למקלחת – ויש מי שיכולה ללכת עם בגד הים ישר לכותל המערבי. בגדי הים הצנועים כוללים חצאית המכסה טייטס קצרצרים, וחולצות שחייה המגיעות גם עם שרוולים מכסי מרפקים, והכל בצבעים שיכולים להתאים בקלות לבית הכנסת בשבת בבוקר.
"זה מיועד לכל מי שלא רוצה לחשוף את גופה", קרמר מפלחת את השוק. "חרדיות, דתיות-לאומיות ואפילו חילוניות, אבל השימוש הוא שונה. החרדיות ילכו עם זה בעיקר לחוף הנפרד, ואילו אצל הדתיות זה מיועד לרוב לרחצה מעורבת – שכן יש דתיות שרוצות ללכת עם הילדים לבריכה, או לצאת לחוף הים עם המשפחה, וכך הן יכולות להיכנס למים ולשחות מבלי לחשוף את עצמן".
"זה לא מיועד רק לדתיות, אלא לכל מי שלא נעים לה להסתובב עם בגד הים הרגיל", היא מבהירה. "באוסטרליה ובארצות הברית, לדוגמה, יש בגדי ים כאלה כבר שנים".
קרמר מספרת כי נדרשה להמציא את הגלגל מחדש. "התחלתי מעצמי, מצרכיי, ומתוך הפונקציונאליות נולד הדגם. הבנתי, לדוגמה, שחצאית זה לא מספיק וצריך 'טייץ' מתחת, אחרת הכול יתרומם. בהתחלה עשיתי שרוולים ארוכים, ואז רצו גם קצר, אז ייצרתי גם את זה". בשלב מסוים הוסיפה קרמר גם כיסוי ראש מבד מיוחד למים, בסגנון שנות הארבעים.
"כל הדוסיות כאן נראות אותו הדבר"
על שפת הבריכה אני פוגשת את הדוגמניות של קרמר, שמופתעות בעצמן מהלוקיישן והמוצרים. "עד השבוע לא ידעתי שיש בכלל מעצבות לדתיות", מודה דניאל להב.
קרמר, בלגית במקורה, לא מתרגשת "מאבחנות הצניעות". כמי שלקחה על עצמה את המשימה הלא פשוטה להפוך
את הדוסיות הישראליות לפאשניסטות למהדרין - היא שוחה היטב בים הסטיגמות הרווחות סביבה. גם הרקע החרדי שלה, כתלמידת "בית יעקב" באנטוורפן, מסייע לה לקלוע במדויק למגוון רחב של דרישות צניעות שונות, שנמצאות ככל הנראה, מתחת לרדאר של מעצב ישראלי ממוצע.
"אני לא אוהבת את העובדה שבארץ כל הדוסיות נראות אותו דבר", היא אומרת. "המעצבים המקומיים די מתעלמים מהצרכים שלהן. לא מצליחה להבין למה. למה בארץ אי אפשר להשיג שמלה שהיא גם יפה, גם טרנדית וגם מכסה בדיוק מה שצריך, לא פחות ולא יותר? כל הדברים שאני מעצבת מבוססים על חוסר. אם היה, לא הייתי צריכה לייצר בעצמי. גם לדתיות מגיע לשחות, לבלות בים ולהראות טוב, לא?"
א' גדלה כחסידה של הרב אליעזר ברלנד מישיבת "שובו בנים" בירושלים. הוא נתן לה את שמה כשנולדה והיה כהגדרתה כל עולמה. לפני 11 חודשים, כשהיא היתה בת 18 והוא בן 75, הכל התהפך.
המתלוננת מספרת כי היא ובעלה נהגו להגיע פעמים רבות אל הרב. "הוא השאיר את בעלי בצד ואמר: 'את בואי תיכנסי איתי לחדר'. הוא הכניס אותי לחדר ונעל אותי בחדר שלו, הכניס את הידיים שלו לתוך החולצה שלי וככה רבע שעה בערך".
היא מתארת כיצד נגע בה כששניהם בחדר הנעול. "הוא ליקק אותי, נישק אותי והתחיל למשש אותי. הוא עשה לי דברים מאוד מגעילים. נבהלתי ממנו מאוד אבל הוא כל שניה הוא היה אומר לי: 'הרב אוהב אותך, הרב חושב עלייך'".
"הוא הסתער עליי מתרגש ומחבק"
א' פנתה למשטרה והתלוננה נגד הרב שגידל אותה. לאחר מכן התברר לה שיש תלנות נוספות נגדו על הטרדות מיניות ומעשי אינוס. "יש לי מזה סיוטים ופחדים הרבה פעמים. אני נזכרת איך הוא הגיע אליי והסתער עליי בכזאתי צורה של התלהבות, וכולו מתרגש ומחבק אותי", סיפרה.
כשברלנד שמע על החקירה המתנהלת הוא ברח לארה"ב משם לשוויץ ולבסוף הגיע למרוקו, שאיתה לישראל אין הסכם הסגרה. עד היום הוא לא הובא למשפט. "אני רוצה שיביאו אותו והוא צריך לקבל עונש על מה שהוא עשה", קראה א', "זה מצער אותי מאוד כי הוא עשה לי רע ואני רואה שלא מטפלים בו".
מאז שהתלוננה א' חוששת לחייה. "אם אני הולכת עכשיו בירושלים ואם אני לא הולכת עם אנשים גדולים לידי או משטרה - יכולים להרוג אותי". היא מספרת כי באחת הפעמים הלכה בירושלים ונתקלה בצרחות וקללות. "חברות שלי כל החיים עוברות לידי ומקללות אותי", סיפרה. אפילו משפחתה של א' מסרבת להאמין לה ואביה ממשיך להיות חסיד אדוק של הרב.
A Monsey man whose plea deal kept him out of prison after he sexually abused two young brothers was in Rockland County Jail on Wednesday, charged with probation violations in the case.
Shmuel Dym, 32, was picked up Friday at his Brewer Road home, the Rockland County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday.
The probation violation complaint covers eight allegations, according to Rockland Senior Assistant District Attorney Patricia Gunning of the Special Victims Unit. Gunning, who prosecuted the original case against Dym, declined to specify what the allegations were.
Dym pleaded guilty last June to two felony counts of course of sexual conduct against a child and two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. He admitted to improperly touching the boys, ages 7 and 8 at the time, multiple times over a three-month period at his former residence on Hadassah Lane in Monsey.
Ramapo police began investigating Dym in August 2011 after getting a complaint of sexual abuse from a member of Monsey's Hasidic community. The child victims were Dym's neighbors, Gunning said Wednesday.
Last July, Dym decided he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and appeal his conviction. The appeal is pending, Gunning said.
In February, he was sentenced to 10 years probation with sex-offender restrictions, which are more strict than standard probation with regard to curfews, computer use, etc., Gunning said. At a classification hearing shortly thereafter, he was ranked a Level 2 sex offender, meaning a moderate risk of a repeat offense, she said.
Prosecutors spoke to the victims' family before agreeing to the plea deal. "In this case, the family was undergoing a lot of pressure" from some members of the Hasidic community and "urged us that they didn't want their children to have to testify," Gunning said.
Dym's guilty plea to the two felony counts could land him in prison for up to 14 years if he is found to have violated probation, Gunning said.
He was arraigned on the probation complaint Monday in Rockland County Court and is being held at Rockland County Jail. His next court date is May 15.
Calls to the Rockland County probation department and to Dym's attorney, Patrick Jennings of Hackensack, N.J., were not immediately returned Wednesday.
The idea was adopted by the ministers after Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri, a former Shin Bet security service chief and the head of the committee, made it clear that financial sanctions were an insufficient deterrent. The idea, they said, would be implemented gradually.
The dearth of ultra-Orthodox troops in the military has long been a thorn in secular-religious relations in Israel.
“Truthfully, financial sanctions will make a fool of the committee because you can’t collect that money from the poor,” Peri said, adding that sanctions that are not enforceable are pointless. “We’ll replace [the fines] with criminal sanctions.”
According to the plan drawn up by the committee, by 2016 law enforcement forces will start treating ultra-Orthodox men who shirk service like all other draft dodgers in Israel — including the application of criminal charges. Until that time, financial sanctions would be wielded against the Torah institutions where draft dodgers study, but not against individuals.
Starting 2017 only 1,800 people will be exempted annually from military service on religious grounds, allowing only the most talented students and future rabbis to continue to study without serving. Those who don’t make the quota and still refuse to join the army would stand trial and go to prison, according to Wednesday’s decision.
In February 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the Tal Law, which had granted sweeping exemptions from military or national service to ultra-Orthodox Israelis, was unconstitutional.
Following the ruling, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Knesset would draft a revised, more equitable law.
A Jewish burial plot in the island state of Cape Verde was rededicated with help from the king of Morocco.
About 100 people attended the rededication ceremony last week.
“The support of King Mohammed VI to this project is representative of Morocco’s attachment to the preservation of its patrimony – Arab, Jewish or Berber,” Andre Azoulay, the king’s Jewish advisor, said in a statement read during the ceremony by Abdellah Boutadghart, a Moroccan diplomat.
Several hundred Moroccan Jews settled in Cape Verde off the Senegalese coast in the 19th century, when it was still a Portuguese colony. The community has since disappeared, but the Moroccan government has been a “major benefactor” of heritage preservation efforts, according to Carol Castiel of the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project.
“Just imagine, a Muslim king contributing to a Jewish project in a Christian country. I think it says it all,” Castiel said.
Situated in the heart of the Cape Verde’s largest cemetery, the Jewish burial plot is set apart by a low-hanging chain that encircles its ten restored headstones, the oldest dating back to 1864. The rededication ceremony was concluded with a prayer by Eliezer Di Martino, the rabbi of the Jewish Community of Lisbon.
“It was a very moving and surreal event,” one of the project’s Jewish supporters, the Casablanca-born American businessman Marc Avissar, told JTA.
The project has so far cost about $125,000 but may end up costing three times that amount as efforts continue to restore additional Jewish heritage sites in other parts of Cape Verde, a republic made up of 10 islands.
A Brooklyn man who presided over a scam that stole $57 million from local Holocaust survivors was found guilty of conspiracy charges Wednesday by a federal jury in Manhattan.
Semen Domnitser faces up to 20 years behind bars for his role in the decade-long scheme that used a New York-based nonprofit, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, to siphon reparations paid by the German government to Jewish victims of the Nazis. Domnitser’s approval was needed on every application that was made to two funds the conference used to help needy survivors.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the jury’s verdict against Domnitser and two others means all 31 people who played roles in the theft have been convicted. Most pleaded guilty.
The IDF has recently rejected requests filed by Haredi soldiers to permit them not to wear their uniform en route to their respective army bases and homes.
According to soldiers serving in the IDF via Shahar haredi integration program, they are heckled, cursed and at times even threatened by members of their communities. The IDF has nonetheless decided that they will remain in military garb, as other IDF soldiers do.
An IDF Personnel Directorate committee appointed to review issues pertaining to haredi conscription, received over 60 requests to allow the soldiers to ride public transportation for free without wearing their uniforms; of the 60 requests filed, a fewer than 20 were granted, Ynet has learned.
In Israel, IDF soldiers travel on public transportation for free if they are in IDF uniform. However, community pressure regarding enlistment to the IDF in the haredi street puts these soldiers in a bind, forcing them to choose between their right to a free ride and living in peace with neighbors.
One of those requests was filed by a soldier living in the haredi neighborhood Bayit VeGan in Jerusalem. According to his wife, he is bombarded with insults when he walks the streets back to his house.
"Our families support us, but they didn’t know my husband serves in the army. If they did, we would lose their financial support," she claimed.
"Principals of Talmudic schools do not accept boys whose fathers serve in the army, and almost every time he returns home, haredi youths spit, curse and threaten him."
The wife added that her husband's commander recommended that he be exempt from wearing IDF uniform outside the military facilities, but he was not granted exemption.
"Despite the fact that we are haredim, we're proud to serve our country," another soldier who was denied the exemption noted, "and serving in the IDF benefits us as well, both presently and in the future, both in economic and in social terms, as well as aiding our personal development."
However, "in the last few weeks, since the legislating process regarding haredi enlistment has been put on the fast track, the (haredi) street is ablaze and we have become its victims.
"They call us names, say we are impure and threaten our children. Some of us are forced to hide and – in violation of army directives – change into our army uniforms in the bathroom of Jerusalem's central bus station, and then take the bus home at our own expense."
It is worth noting that haredi soldiers who received the much desired exemption are those whose army service requires them to go deep into haredi neighborhoods and try to convince ultra-orthodox boys to enlist.
The committee is trying – through a better understanding of the haredi street and cooperation with leading yeshiva heads – to make it easier for 1,300 haredim currently serving in the IDF, all the while reiterating the fact that as IDF soldiers who enlisted, they knew that the uniforms were mandatory and an integral part of army service.
The IDF Spokesperson Unit said in response: "Soldiers serving through the Shahar (haredi integration) service track are aware that service in the IDF entails wearing a uniform like every other IDF soldier.
"In light of the sensitivity of the issue and taking into account unique circumstances in which commuting in uniform is truly impossible, the committee deals with each request individually."
Israeli business daily Calcalist has revealed that Facebook is in talks to acquire Israeli startup company Waze for an estimated $800 million to $1 billion. The deal is currently in advanced stages and due diligence is underway after the term sheet was signed.
Negotiations in fact began six months ago. On January, reports alleged that the developer of the Waze free mobile navigation application was in talks with Apple, which the American technology giant denied.
Estimates followed that Waze was conducting acquisition talks with companies the likes of Microsoft and Facebook. However no de facto negotiations between Waze and Facebook were held at the beginning of the year, but both parties met during three visits to Israel by Facebook representatives.
Waze and Facebook partnered in October 2012 when Waze released its updated version that interfaces with Facebook. The interface allows users to share their drive with their Facebook buddies.
The deal would be one of Facebook’s largest acquisitions, aside from Instagram, which it acquired in 2012 for a similar sum, and its third acquisition in Israel – preceded by the acquisition of Snaptu in 2011 for $70 million and Face.com in 2012 for $60 million.
Facebook wound up both companies and relocated their employees to its headquarters in San Francisco, New York and London. It is not yet clear what will become of Waze following the deal.
In the past year, Waze tripled its user base from 15 million to 45 million, and last March alone 1.5 million users downloaded its free mobile navigation application. About a third of its users live in the United States, and as of now its popularity in the West is second only to Google Maps, whereas in developing markets such as Brazil, Uruguay and Indonesia it surpassed Google by far.
הפתעה בליין 'רביעי סטודנטים' במועדון ה'וולנברג' בירושלים: הבליין המתמיד יאיר נתניהו, מלווה בשומר ראש, לא מפספס הזדמנות להצטלם עם מעריצות תחת עינו הפקוחה של המאבטח.
וכן, הנהלת המקום החליטה לאשר בצעד חריג הכנסת אדם חמוש.
Danielle Morris, 34, has faced the prospect of losing her job throughout a three-and-a-half-year investigation following the off-the-cuff remark.
Finally, in a ruling made public today, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has fined her £2,500 and ordered her to pay £5,250 in costs.
They issued no further disciplinary sanctions, ruling the remarks were “foolish and ignorant rather than malicious”.
However, the incident is believed to have costs tens of thousands more in legal fees and compensation after a Jewish member of staff overheard the comments and took her bosses to tribunal.
Mrs Morris, who now works part time at another practice, claimed in her defence that she had no idea there was a history of discrimination against Jews.
The incident began when the mother-of-two took one of her children to the doctor and a man in Orthodox Jewish dress "caused a scene" and was seen first, the panel heard.
She later relayed her experience to a receptionist at her law firm, stating: "I cannot stand Jewish people."
A Jewish cashier in the office complained: "Please do not say that", but Mrs Morris added: "I don't care, I cannot stand them."
The cashier, named only as Mrs S, made a formal complaint to Lancashire based firm Mulderiggs - where Mrs Morris was working her notice as a junior solicitor after being made redundant – and received a written apology.
Five days after the incident on December 4 2009 Mrs S left the law firm and brought a racial and religious discrimination claim against Mrs Morris and the practice.
In May 2011 she was awarded an undisclosed sum in damages after the employment tribunal ruled in her favour.
A year later Mrs Morris was called before a second panel, this time at the SRA.
Initially she denied the comment, but her lawyer Gareth Edwards later admitted it was "unintentionally discriminatory remark which arose from foolishness and ignorance, not wickedness".
Mr Edwards said Mrs Morris had tried to apologise, but it had not been accepted.
He said his client had "not been aware" of the long history of the persecution of Jewish people.
He added: "Because of her age she has had limited direct contact with those who had been familiar with the discovery of the horrors of the holocaust or the attitudes which had led to these events.”
She had no intention of causing offence, he told the panel.
Mrs Morris, who works part time as conveyancing lawyer, argued she was a woman of modest means, living in a house worth £105,000 with equity of just £30,000.
In their decision panel chairman Ken Duncan said they accepted Mrs Morris had tried to apologise on three occasions, but criticised her for not saying sorry on the day and not writing a personal letter of apology.
Mr Duncan said: "What she had said was inappropriate and offensive however it occurred on one occasion only. This was not a situation in which there had been repeated or sustained discrimination.
"The tribunal took into account the fact that the events in issue had taken place over three years ago and she had been under the threat of potentially losing her career for that period.”
Alongside the £7,750 she was ordered to pay by the panel her legal costs are thought to be £1,000.
Jodi Arias has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal stabbing and shooting of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, who was found dead in a pool of blood in his shower in 2008.
In what marks the end of a sensational case wrought with sex, lies and jealousy, a jury in Phoenix, Arizona delivered the verdict on Wednesday afternoon, four months after the trial began.
Arias, 32, became emotional as the jury announced the first-degree murder charge.
The jury, which took two days to reach the verdict, will convene for the next stage in the case tomorrow to decide on Arias' sentence. She could face life in prison or the death penalty.
The bloodied body of Travis Alexander, a Mormon motivational speaker and salesman, was found by friends in the shower of his Mesa, Arizona home five days after he was killed in June 2008.
In grisly scenes that were photographed and shown in court, he suffered nearly 30 knife wounds to his body, was shot in the head and had his throat slit so deeply he was almost decapitated.
Arias then dragged his body into his shower before dumping it for his friends to find.
Testimony in the trial began in early January, with Arias later spending 18 days on the witness stand.
The trial quickly snowballed into a made-for-the-tabloids drama, garnering daily coverage from cable news networks, and spawning a virtual cottage industry for talk shows, legal experts and even Arias, who used her notoriety to sell artwork she made in jail.
Arias and Alexander had dated for only several months after meeting at a conference in Las Vegas in 2007, but they continued a sexual relationship after their breakup.
Prosecutors claimed that Arias had planned the brutal attack in a jealous rage after being rejected by Alexander as he planned to head on a trip to Mexico with another woman.
Arias initially any denied involvement - even calling Alexander in the days after the killing and leaving friendly messages on his voicemail - and later blamed the killing on masked intruders.
But two years after her arrest, she eventually admitted to killing him - but said it was in self-defense. She said she recalled Alexander attacking her in fury for dropping his camera after a day of sex at his home.
She said Alexander came at her 'like a linebacker', body-slamming her to the tile floor. She said she managed to wriggle free and ran into his closet to retrieve a gun he kept on a shelf.
She said she fired in self-defense but had no memory of stabbing him.
But throughout the trial, prosecutor Juan Martinez attempted to paint Arias as a manipulative liar and said her account did simply not line up with the facts and how she had appeared to plot the killing.
'It's like a field of lies that has sprouted up around her as she sat on the witness stand,' Martinez said of Arias. 'Every time she spat something out, another lie.'
Martinez sought to show how Arias had planned out her attack weeks in advance, explaining how she stole the .25 -caliber gun used in the attack from her grandparents' home where she was staying in Yreka, California, two days after a heated text-message exchange between Arias and Alexander.
During the text exchange, Alexander described her as a 'sociopath' and 'evil.'
'How absolutely prophetic,' Martinez had said to the court.
She rented a car at an airport in Northern California to drive to Alexander's home, but refused a red car as she thought it might attract tickets, Martinez said.
She then filled up three gas cans in Pasadena and turned off her cellphone before she reached Arizona, Martinez said, suggesting these decisions were so that there was no proof she was in Arizona at the time she killed Alexander.
He said such actions are those of someone committing first-degree, premeditated murder.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution repeatedly showed grisly crime scene photographs of Travis Alexander, including blood-splattered walls and images of his deep knife wounds.
The images were too much for Arias and Alexander's relatives, who buried their faces in their hands or otherwise looked away as the photos were displayed on a giant screen.
In a bizarre twist, a camera, which she apparently dropped, also snapped photographs of her dragging his body. It was later found in a washing machine and water-logged but authorities were able to retrieve the images. Others showed Arias and Alexander on the day before his death.
Arias acknowledged trying to clean the scene of the killing, dumping the gun in the desert and working on an alibi to avoid suspicion.
She said she was too scared and ashamed to tell the truth, and didn't want to sully Alexander's name by revealing their raunchy sex and his violent episodes.
After her arrest in June 2008, she displayed bizarre behavior, such as singing, laughing, talking to herself and doing a 20-minute headstand while alone in the interrogation room. Footage of the strange behavior was deemed too prejudicial to show the jury.
Arias and her defense team had argued that Alexander had grown physically abusive in the months before she killed him, once even choking her into unconsciousness, yet she loved him.
The defense sought to portrayed Alexander as a cheating womanizer who used Arias for sex and abused her physically, sexually and emotionally while keeping her hidden from his friends.
Arias testified for 18 days and described her abusive childhood, cheating boyfriends, dead-end jobs, a shocking sexual relationship with Alexander, and her contention that he had grown physically abusive in the months leading to his death, once even choking her into unconsciousness.
She claimed she felt ashamed following sex with Alexander - even though prosecutors played voicemails where she told of how much she enjoyed their dalliances and named her favorite types of lubricants.
A state commission looking at whether judicial license plates help judges dodge parking and traffic tickets declared Wednesday there was no problem.
But one of the panel’s own members slammed the report as “an exercise in evasion.”
“The failure of our report to confront the issue head on ... betrays a pragmatic queasiness with the possibility of withdrawing an established, longstanding perk for the judiciary," wrote veteran attorney Richard Emery, a member of the Commission on Judicial Conduct. "Public confidence will further erode if we exempt our judges from equal application of the law — no matter how minor."
The commission started probing the issue in August after an upstate judge — who served in the Office of Court Administration advising judges on ethics — helped fix a ticket for herself and for the wife of another judge.
At the time, the commission declared the possible abuse of judicial license plates to dodge parking and traffic tickets was potentially pervasive.
The commission also noted it had "repeatedly" looked at cases where judicial plates inspired cops to deep-six parking and traffic violations for judges.
But Wednesday's 14-page report said such plates were not a problem.
State records show 2,265 state, local and federal judges use the specially marked plates on their private vehicles.
The 10-member commission issued a finding that declared judicial plates "do not create an appearance of impropriety."
Four commission members are judges, two of whom have judicial plates.
The toughest recommendation in the report was to order the Office of Court Administration to put the issue on the agenda of training programs for judges.
Even the report itself made clear the commission keeps running into this issue: "Over the years in the course of investigating other complaints of ticket-fixing, the Commission has been advised by law enforcement officers in various parts of the state that at times they have declined to issue tickets to motorists whom they stopped for speeding, once they realized by virtue of license plates that the drivers were judges."
Emery blasted the findings, citing numerous cases of judges fixing or trying to fix tickets, and even of one judge being driven home by cops to avoid a drunk-driving charges instead of being arrested.
"Though judges are unequivocally prohibited from using their judicial status to obtain special treatment for themselves, their families or friends, they are legislatively authorized to flaunt their judicial status on their personal vehicles wherever they go," he wrote. "This schizophrenic message inevitably leads to bizarre scenarios involving special treatment being afforded and accepted by judges."
NY - Parsons The New School of Design in New York City has canceled a four-day workshop by the controversial fashion designer John Galliano.
Galliano was creative director at Christian Dior when he was fired in 2011 for an anti-Semitic rant. He’s currently involved in a lawsuit against his former employer.
The school said in a statement that his appearance was to include “a candid discussion about the connection between his professional work and his actions in the world at large.” It said it canceled the workshop after the two sides couldn’t reach consensus on the conditions of the conversation.
A spokesman for Galliano didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the designer began a temporary artist residency at the studio of Oscar de la Renta in New York.
