Fbi

A serial bandit suspected in five area bank robberies struck again in Center City on Monday, the FBI said. Around 12:20 p.m., the man entered the Republic Bank at 1818 Market St. and gave the teller a demand note. He then fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, an FBI spokeswoman said. The robber, described as a slender black man in his late 30s to early 40s with "scruffy" facial hair, is suspected in at least five other stickups this year. One was at the same Republic Bank branch on Feb. 19. Surveillance photos from Monday's heist show him wearing a dark coat, dark knit cap, jeans, and light brown work boots, authorities said.

TARIK HOOKS' LinkedIn page says he's a businessman with an MBA, and police in New York have lauded his brave testimony in a murder trial. But the FBI says he's the serial bank robber whose uncovered mug graced the front page of the Daily News on Feb. 21, after he allegedly knocked over seven banks and tried to rob two others. Hooks, 35, a West Philly contracts and budget manager with a master's degree from Strayer University, was charged Thursday in connection with nine area bank robberies and admitted to a 10th in Delaware after his arrest, the FBI said.

ON THE DAY he was featured on the cover of the People Paper, a serial bank robber may have struck again. Authorities believe that the man who robbed a TD Bank on Garrett Road in Upper Darby about 1:30 p.m., Thursday is the same person implicated in nine prior robberies and attempts around the region. According to federal investigators, the surveillance images, description from tellers and methods match that of the serial robber they've been seeking. The man in each robbery presented the teller with a demand note and walked out with an undisclosed amount of cash, authorities said.

The FBI ramped up its efforts Wednesday to help identify the subject of sexually explicit photographs that have circulated on the Internet for a decade. The photos, of an underage girl, have been viewed on child-pornography forums since February 2003, and agents also are seeking the public's help in identifying two men who may have had contact with the victim, the FBI said. The only clues the FBI has are images. They are of two unknown men, of a yellow T-shirt containing the outline of a basketball with the phrase "New Market Basketball," and of a home with what appears to be yellow siding and an aboveground swimming pool.

A team of FBI agents has been conducting interviews in recent weeks in the Dominican Republic and the United States, looking into allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) patronized prostitutes in the Caribbean nation, but has found no evidence to support the claim, according to two people familiar with the investigation. One person said agents have asked about whether a Florida eye doctor - a close friend and major campaign donor to Menendez - provided the senator with prostitutes on vacations there.

PITTSBURGH - The FBI seized documents Tuesday from the headquarters of the Pittsburgh Police Department. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the FBI removed documents, but did not provide details of what was taken. Police Chief Nate Harper has been under scrutiny since a former friend of his was charged last year in connection with a bribery scheme on a contract to install radios and computers in police cars. Last week it emerged that Harper helped form a private security consulting firm with a civilian clerk and three city officers, including one he promoted from sergeant to commander.

Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh will take over leadership of the law firm Pepper Hamilton L.L.P. later this month, replacing Nina Gussack, the firm announced Tuesday. Freeh, who last year completed a blistering report on the failure of Pennsylvania State University officials to report sexual abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, merged his Wilmington-based firm with Pepper Hamilton last year. He said he expects to expand the firm's white-collar defense practice while further developing the in-house investigative and consulting work that was a forte of the firm he merged with Pepper Hamilton.

The son-in-law of Gov. Corbett, a narcotics officer with the Philadelphia Police Department, is under investigation by the FBI and was removed from the street Thursday, sources said. The Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that a narcotics officer was taken off the street and placed on administrative leave Thursday, following the results of an FBI and Internal Affairs investigation. The department said it would not identify the officer because he had not been arrested or formally charged.

On March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped for ransom from the family's Hunterdon County mansion, in a crime that stunned the nation and remains the subject of doubt and speculation more than 80 years later. Now the PBS science program NOVA weighs in on the case, relying on behavioral science and forensics in an attempt to solve it. But as in past efforts, the program, scheduled to air 9 p.m. Wednesday on WHYY TV12, offers answers to some questions but raises others as well.

WASHINGTON - Two years after a hostage video and photographs of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson raised the possibility that the American was being held by extremists, U.S. officials now see the government of Iran behind the images, intelligence officials told the Associated Press. Levinson, a private investigator, disappeared in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish. The Iranian government has repeatedly denied knowing anything about his disappearance. Photos that Levinson's family received in late 2010 and early 2011 - showing his hair wild and gray, his beard unkempt - are being seen for the first time publicly after the family provided copies to the AP. In response to Iran's denials, and amid secret conversations with Tehran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement in 2011 that Levinson was being held somewhere in South Asia.