Tag: glenn funk

Funk’s Friend Faces Felony: Socialite Brenda Ross jailed on new stalking charge Friday

Jason Steen

67-year-old Brenda Ross is free on a new $2,500 bond after being jailed on a new felony aggravated stalking charge this weekend. The Nashville socialite who hobnobs with the like of the District Attorney, The Mayor, and sitting judges, was initially arrested on May 9th for violating an order of protection. The new warrant, which was signed on May 11th, details multiple instances of Ross sending messages to the victim, Marilyn Jones, via social media, showing up at Jazzy’s where she knew the victim to be, only to sit across the bar and stare at her without saying anything. Once the victim left and went to Larry’s Bar, Ross followed her there. The victim continues to feel harassed and stalked by Ross.

Nashville’s Brenda Ross: Arrested. Stalking. Pics in a Swingers club. Orders of protection. Friend of the Mayor. Friend of Funk.

Jason Steen

67-year-old Brenda Ross has been involved in more entanglements in the last two months than some folks experience in two decades. In March, Jacinta West received an order of protection against Ross after she said Ross, who was one of the first members of Nashville’s Police Community Oversight Board, stalked her. The two share a circle of friends, some of who warned that Ross had posted on social media alluding she was going o fuck them up and that she was “going to get them.” West says Ross then followed and chased her one night at might as she was picking up a friend, even pulling up beside her and yelling curse words at her. Previously in January, Ross reportedly grabbed West’s wrist while at a nightclub. West states she remains in fear of Ross, and her “political ties” only make the situation worse. Ross is an East Nashvillian who has served on several mayoral-appointed commissions over the years and can be found hobnobbing with the city’s elite on any given night of the week. Ross was jailed on Monday for violating one of the many current orders of protection. She is free on a $1,500 bond.

Leon Lewis III jailed on $80K bond after murdering a small dog at Hermitage Hotel

Jason Steen

Metro Nashville Police say 39-year-old Leon Lewis III walked out of the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel in Hermitage with a small black dog on a leash and into a ditch, pulled a revolver, and shot the dog. A witness observed the small dog’s tail still wagging while he bled to death from the mouth. Lewis stated “I should’ve just let the dog go” as he was arrested and charged with aggravated animal cruelty, felon in possession of a weapon, and aggravated reckless endangerment. He is jailed in lieu of an $80,000 bond.

Guilty Vanderbilt Nurse Radonda Vaught still faces perjury charge for lying on gun store purchase while awaiting trial

Jason Steen

Now that disgraced Vanderbilt Nurse Radonda Vaught has been found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult for her actions responsible for a patient’s death, she must still face a perjury charge related to a gun store purchase while awaiting trial in the homicide case. In materials that prosecutors from the District Attorney’s Office were prepared to use had Vaught taken the stand is a copy of an affidavit charging Vaught with lying to the government once before.

The Jury would have heard how she attempted to pick up two AR-15 Lower Receivers from a local gun store, swearing she wasn’t under any felony indictments – despite being arrested and booked on a felony reckless homicide indictment months earlier, for which she was currently out on bond. Once caught, she would admit she had “some court stuff going on”, downplaying the felony reckless homicide indictment she was facing.

UPDATE: Charges dropped against Husband, Wife released from DCS Custody — Cops had wrong birthdate

Jason Steen

In a major update to the story we published yesterday about a refugee couple being separated by Metro Nashville Police, who charged the husband with felony statutory rape and committed the wife to DCS Custody, we have just learned that all charges are being dropped and the wife is being released from DCS custody. Metro Nashville Police say there was an error in determining her date of birth, which was actually in 2003, not 2006, making her 18-years-old, soon to be 19.

Nashville Police jail Married Afghan refugee; take wife into DCS custody — Maseehullah Feda

Jason Steen

Metro Nashville Police initially responded to a 3rd party call about a domestic dispute early Tuesday morning. They met with 25-year-old Maseehullah Feda and his wife, who explained they were a married couple and were recently-arrived refugees from Afghanistan. As police were reviewing their provided and valid Employment Authorization cards they found the wife’s age to be 15. While allowable with permission in the country in which they were married (and also in Hawaii, Missouri, Montana, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire), police were not going to allow it in Tennessee.

Officers inquired about the sexual activities of the married couple, and they admitted they had sex within the past day, as they were married. Officer Paul Hughes took Feda into custody and charged him with felony statutory rape of his wife. Feda remains in jail, while his wife was removed from their home and taken into the custody of DCS.

After Glenn Funk lets him walk on first charge, Colin Beason charged with stealing from another employer

Jason Steen

28-year-old Colin Beason has, once again, been caught doing return fraud at a retail store that employed him. In 2019, we covered his felony theft arrest for pocketing $1800 in cash from fraudulent returns from GameStop. District Attorney Glenn Funk agreed to give him a deferred judgment with no conviction for that charge, and he moved on without a guilty plea on his record. Beason now works for Locker Room by Lids at Opry Mills Mall. Earlier this week, the store notified Metro Police they had determined Beason had stolen $4,718.30 in cash from fraudulent returns. Beason signed a confession in the case, and because of the prior deal with DA Funk, has no prior conviction. Beason, who studied finance at MTSU, was booked into the Metro Nashville Jail, charged with felony theft, and is free on a $2,500 bond.

Nashville Rapper ‘Big Geeche’ charged with assaulting yet another girlfriend — AKA Calvin Woods

Jason Steen

27-year-old Calvin Woods Jr., who prefers to be known as ‘Big Geeche’, and has a recent release titled “Found Guilty”, is once again charged with assaulting a lover. In this most recent case, his girlfriend, Cayla Yates, called 911 to report he grabbed her by the throat with both hands as she attempted to stop him from taking a pair of AirPods, which he had bought for her, from her purse. She eventually grabbed a knife in what she describes as “self-defense”, and says he cut his own hand by grabbing it. Woods told police during an interview that he only pushed her away when she pulled a knife on him. He was determined to be the primary aggressor and was taken into custody. He is charged with aggravated assault/strangulation and is free on a $10,000 bond.

In 2018, Woods was charged with the assault of a former girlfriend after police documented laceration injuries of the female he wrestled to the ground and tossed her phone in a dumpster so she couldn’t call 911. DA Glenn Funk retired those charges, as long as he promised to not get in trouble again. A few months later, Woods was charged with dragging the same girlfriend across the floor by her hair in front of children, after he punched her in the face multiple times. Police also documented those injures, but DA Glenn Funk refused to move forward with the prosecution in July of this year when the girlfriend backed out of testifying, despite the already collected evidence.

Downtown employee charged in attack of TLC Inspector who demanded he wear a mask — Sam Shapiro

Jason Steen

24-year-old Samuel Barron Shapiro is charged with felony aggravated assault after a grand jury indicted him on the charge stemming from a mask enforcement encounter in downtown Nashville. Court records show Howard “Butch” Morris, while on duty as a TLC commission inspector in October of 2020 demanded that Metro Nashville police issue a citation to Shapiro, who he says had refused to wear a mask, despite multiple requests from the inspector. Shapiro told officers that Morris had been harassing him, and stated he will hit him if he continues to follow him.

Moments later, the inspector approached Shapiro, and Shapiro swung at him twice, missing the first time, and knocking him to the ground as the second punch landed. As the victim sat up from the blow, Shapiro reportedly used his boot to kick the victim in the head. The case was presented to the Grand Jury in September of 2021, at which time a true bill was returned, and a warrant was issued. Shapiro was booked into jail on the charge on December 8th and is free on a $7,500 bond.

Inspector Morris also once sued a Nashville taxi driver for $250,000 after the driver ran over his foot during an altercation as Morris was chastising the driver about using an incorrect pickup location. That case settled out of court.

Owner of Nashville Stripper Service MusicCityDollz arrested for punching boyfriend — Kristen Peppers

Staff Reports

32-year-old Kristen Peppers was booked into the Metro Nashville jail just as the sun was rising Saturday morning, charged with domestic assault with bodily injury. Her boyfriend, Mychal Dabney, says he had come to visit her for the holiday and was sleeping when, in the middle of the night, he was suddenly awoken out of his sleep by his girlfriend punching him in the face repeatedly with her fists, leaving him bleeding, which he used her bedsheets in an attempt to stop the bleeding from his nose and face. Peppers admits that she was upset after seeing some photos on Instagram and Facebook which he had ‘liked’ using his account. She is free on a $1,500 bond.