Crime

Transgender Community Rallies After Homicide in Prince George’s

THE AFRO — The investigation into the apparent homicide of a transgender woman in Fairmount Heights continues in Prince George’s County. Ashanti Carmon, 27, of Alexandria, Va. was fatally shot several times reportedly after an evening out with friends on March 30.

Published

8 years ago

April 15, 2019

Oakland Post

By Mark F. Gray

The investigation into the apparent homicide of a transgender woman in Fairmount Heights continues in Prince George’s County. Ashanti Carmon, 27, of Alexandria, Va. was fatally shot several times reportedly after an evening out with friends on March 30.

According to a statement from the Prince George’s County Police Department, Fairmount Heights Police responded to reports of gunshots fired near the 5000 block of Jost Street in the vicinity of Eastern Avenue N.E., near the D.C.- Maryland border, around 6:30 a.m. When officers arrived on the scene they found Carmon’s body filled with multiple gunshot wounds and she was pronounced dead on the scene.

In an emotional interview Carmon’s fiancé, Phillip Williams, told NBC-4 in Washington there was no reason why someone would want to hurt her. Williams said they had gone to a movie and dinner on Friday night, and he hadn’t heard from Ashanti since she went out with her friends while he was at work.

“Until I leave this earth, I’m gonna continue on loving her, in my heart, body and soul,” Williams said. “She did not deserve to leave this earth so early. Especially in the way she went out, she did not deserve that. … I’m gonna miss her face every day. I’m gonna miss her smile. I’m gonna miss every inch of her.”

Police have yet to make any arrests in the case while Carmon’s loved ones and the transgender community have rallied around this horrific tragedy. A candlelight vigil was held to honor her memory on April 2. It was not only a time for the D.M.V.’s transgender community to mourn it was a call to action against a rash of hate crimes directed toward them.

“I can’t call it hate. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what led up to it,” said trans activist Earline Budd Metro Weekly. All we can do is plead that someone comes forward with information. I believe that eventually something will come out that will shed more light on what happened.”

A major problem facing this community is gentrification. With D.C. and Maryland in the midst of their transformations, many of the places where members of the gay, lesbian and transgender community would socialize in have been converted into new establishments, which has diminished the number of safe social sanctuaries for these residents.

Budd noted that while there have been a history of anti-transgender attacks or robberies in the Eastern Avenue corridor in recent years, this community has no place to congregate in the D.C. metro area, and therefore end up meeting in public places, like along the Eastern Avenue corridor where Carmon’s apparent murder took place.

“We don’t have anywhere in this city now to go,” Budd said. “So the streets are the place where we congregate with our friends and sometimes we are preyed upon.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign’s 2018 Anti-Trans Violence Report at least 128 transgender and gender-expansive individuals have been killed in the U.S since 2013. However, 2017 and 2018 saw the largest spike toward transgender Americans with 51 targeted attacks that were fatal nationwide.

Transgender people of color have been targeted the most. In the past six years of reporting at least 110 victims were people of color, including 95 who identified themselves as Black or African American.

“With the administration we have now, the Trump-Pence administration, it has done nothing for us as transgender people,” Budd added. “In fact, it more or less validates that it’s all right to kill us, to do anything you want to us, because we are transgender people.”

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

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Business

AG Bonta Announces Action on Cryptocurrency, Sextortion Fraud – Increasingly Targeting Gen-Z

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is warning residents about a surge in cryptocurrency fraud and online sextortion schemes that increasingly target Gen Z through social media platforms. With internet-based scams costing Americans nearly $21 billion in 2023, Bonta highlighted how artificial intelligence and deepfakes allow criminals to impersonate loved ones and promote fraudulent investment groups. The Attorney General’s Office has already shut down over 100 fraudulent websites and is now utilizing new legislative tools to recover assets for victims. Read more.

Published

2 weeks ago

November 3, 2026

Post News Group

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned residents about rising cryptocurrency fraud and online sextortion scams, urging Californians to recognize warning signs and protect themselves as scammers increasingly target younger people through social media.

Speaking at a news conference on Oct. 19, Bonta said Americans lost $20.9 billion to internet-based scams in 2025, including $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams. He said artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and malicious smart contracts have made fraud easier to carry out and more difficult to detect and prevent.

While older Californians remain targets, Bonta said his office has seen a sharp rise in reports of Gen Z consumers being targeted on platforms such as Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram.

One growing scheme involves so-called rug-pull scams, in which fraudsters promote low-priced stocks or volatile cryptocurrencies through online investment groups and streaming communities. After generating interest and driving up prices, scammers sell their holdings, causing values to collapse and leaving investors with losses.

Bonta also warned about sextortion, in which scammers trick or coerce victims into sharing explicit images before threatening to distribute them to friends and family unless they pay. He advised victims not to give in to demands, saying scammers often do not release the images when victims refuse to pay. Instead, he recommended ignoring and blocking the perpetrators.

Another scheme, known as recovery fraud, targets people who have already lost money to cryptocurrency scams. Fraudsters impersonate blockchain recovery specialists or law enforcement officials and demand additional payments while promising to recover stolen assets.

Bonta urged Californians to be skeptical of promises of large returns on small investments, fake cryptocurrencies resembling established ones, and celebrity endorsements that may have been generated using artificial intelligence. He also warned that scammers can use AI to impersonate loved ones through manipulated video and audio.

“Never use a crypto ATM,” Bonta said, emphasizing that transactions can be difficult to trace and reverse and that the machines lack adequate consumer protections.

His office has shut down more than 100 fraudulent websites over the past two years that collectively scammed victims out of at least $8.3 million, he said.

Bonta also highlighted Senate Bill 1208, which he said was recently signed into law. The measure allows law enforcement to petition a court to return seized cryptocurrency to victims, including when alleged perpetrators are outside U.S. jurisdiction.

Residents who have fallen victim to scams can report them to the California Department of Justice at oag.ca.gov/report.

Bonta also urged victims not to feel embarrassed, stressing that scammers are responsible for the harm they cause.