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Smartphone Security

Computer expert Addison Osterhout with "Computer Answers" in Albany showed us how easy it is to hack a smart phone.

“The simplest is using a free program that you can download,” Says Osterhout. “Get some tutorials on line and in about 10 minutes you can do it.”

Sure enough in ten minutes Addison was monitoring everything the photographer was doing: if he had been logging onto his bank's website, he would have gotten his passwords, account number, you name it.

It’s called a "Man in the Middle" intercept.

It can happen if you use an unsecured Wi-Fi connection like those found in airports, bus stations and internet cafes.

The thief’s software pretends to be the router you're trying to connect to, he decrypts your data, copies it, re-encrypts it and then sends it on to your bank.

While you were taking care of business, but so was the crook.

Father who killed son, son’s girlfriend in drunken driving crash going to prison

A father who killed his son and his son's girlfriend, is going to prison. Philip Dobert was drunk when he crashed the car he was driving last summer, killing both passengers.

The 20-year-old victims were his own son and his son's girlfriend. When the judge asked Dobert if he wanted to speak in court Friday, Dobert kept quiet. His victims' relatives had a lot to say, however.

The accident happened last July when Dobert drove off Route 40 and crashed into a pole. Kyle Dobert, the defendant's son and Kyle's girlfriend, Alisha Schoonmaker were killed.

Kyle was from Schaghticoke and Alisha was from Clifton Park but both were students at HVCC. The elder Dobert pled guilty to two counts for aggravated vehicular homicide and Friday morning.

Rensselaer County Judge Andrew Ceresia sentenced him to seven to 21 years behind bars.

Radioactive material found in Halfmoon

Three Saratoga county men now face charges in connection with a radioactive find in Halfmoon.

Our media partners at the Post Star newspaper report 76 year old Edward Kenelly removed a piece of radioactive equipment from the Mary McClellan hospital in Cambridge.

He's accused of paying two other men to help him bury the device in concrete under his home on Tupelo Drive.

State officials say the material did not pose any immediate threat to public health.

 

Schenectady case highlights sex trafficking problems across country

A man was recently convicted of forcing a mentally ill teen into prostitution. This has raised awareness to a growing problem. Mark Mulholland reports.

ALBANY - Bruce Carey is a 56-year-old Schenectady man with a long history of preying on teenagers.

Carey was convicted Wednesday of luring a mentally-ill teen from a New York City psychiatric facility to his apartment in Schenectady where he raped her and forced her to prostitute.

Carey was arrested after the victim managed to escape to a nearby Burger King and staff there helped her.

"We really need a full community response when it comes to being able to take a bite out of this crime," said Edward Suk, executive director of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's New York branch.

The National Center partnered with CAPTAIN's Runaway Shelter in Saratoga County Thursday for a seminar in Albany to educate law enforcement from across the state about sex trafficking of teens.

Mother begs for leniency for son who stabbed her 13 times

QUEENSBURY - He was first charged with attempted murder. Late last month Dearian Morgan pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in the October knife attack on his mother, Sheryl Monroe.

He stabbed her at least 13 times.

At sentencing Wednesday, prosecutors reminded the judge of what Morgan told police.

"I kept stabbing her," read First Assistant District Attorney Jason Carusone. "While I was stabbing her, she screamed for me to stop."

Monroe survived the attack, but has limited use of her right hand and needs more surgery.

She was in court Wednesday afternoon to ask the judge to go easy on her son.

"I don't fear him. I never have. I beg you to be lenient," pleaded Monroe.  "He never would've done what he did if not under the influence of that despicable substance, 'posh.'"

Albany cop convicted of harassing ex-girlfriend

HALFMOON - Officer Robert Schunk is 40-years-old and a 14-year veteran of the Albany Police Department.

But prosecutors describe a man who often puts himself on the wrong side of the law.

Saratoga County District Attorney Jim Murphy says Schunk has been harassing a former girlfriend for years.

The last straw may have come Thursday night in Halfmoon. A jury found Schunk guilty of criminal mischief and harassment related to an attack on the woman at her apartment in 2010.

"She ran in the bathroom, slammed and locked the door and he crashed into the door, kicked and knocked it down, obliterating it and he pounced on her," said Murphy.

Schunk was previously convicted of driving while ability impaired, accused of criminal trespass and reckless endangerment and even admitted pointing a loaded gun at his then-girlfriend.

Llenroc owner faces federal complaint

REXFORD - For many people, the Llenroc Mansion in Rexford represents opulence and elegance. To others, it's a symbol of greed and corruption.

More than a decade after Llenroc's original owner, Al Lawrence, went to prison for his financial misdeeds, the property's current owner is now facing unsettling charges of her own.

That current owner is a 39-year-old widow named Annie George, the mother of five children.

Tragedy struck Llenroc in June 2009 when a plane crashed into the Mohawk River, killing its owner, hotel operator Mathai Kolath George and his 12-year-old son George Kolath, Jr.

Annie George was left to raise the family's five remaining children. She also inherits a potential criminal predicament that allegedly began when her husband was still alive.

A criminal complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Albany alleges that the family has had an illegal immigrant from India working for them for several years.