Greene County man accused of threatening wife

On 18 August, a Greene County resident allegedly pulled a knife on and threatened to stab his wife, who he was legally separated from at the time, unless she would sleep with him immediately.

Officers responded to a domestic call last Friday and immediately found the suspect’s mother, Wendy Boardman, who claimed her son Robert Boardman had a knife and expressed anger at the fact that his wife, whom he was legally separated from, was “sleeping with another man.”

Mrs. Boardman told officials that a conversation with her son revealed the couple had been arguing all day about the matter, and that the only reason he had a knife on his person was to cut down trees in the woods.

When law enforcement went to speak with the wife, however, she stated that Robert had told her to either go upstairs to have intercourse with him or he was going to stab her and light her truck on fire.

The wife stated on the record that Robert had stuck a paper towel in her truck and set fire to it. The officer in charge of the scene did find paper towels in the gas tank which had been lit on fire.

In her statement, the wife said that first her husband had threatened her safety, thrown her phone and keys so that she could not leave or call 911, then threatened to stab her juvenile son.

He also grabbed her by the arms and threw her to the ground, and police found injuries on her which seemed to corroborate the testimony.

Robert Boardman was placed under arrest for aggravated domestic assault and interference with 911 calls, and was transported to the Cocke County Jail without incident.

Other charges are pending based on further investigation.

Charges filed in alleged Amazon Marketplace scheme

Five individuals and four companies have been sentenced for participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold on the Amazon marketplace.

The investigation has resulted in a total of six individual guilty pleas and four corporate guilty pleas.

Victor Btesh, of New York, was sentenced to 18 months’ incarceration, followed by two years of supervised release, and a fine of $38,000; Btesh’s three companies, Michelle’s DVD Funhouse, MJR Prime, and Prime Brooklyn, were each respectively sentenced to a $156,520, $125,688, and $61,844 criminal fine on August 23, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

Additionally, Emmanuel Hourizadeh, Raymond Nouvahian, Morris Sutton, Bruce Fish, and Fish’s company, BDF Enterprises, Inc. were all sentenced on July 21, 2023, also in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Hourizadeh, and Nouvahian, both of New York, were sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, seven months home confinement, a criminal fine of $55,000 each, and two years of supervised release; Sutton, of New Jersey, was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, five months home confinement, a $20,000 criminal fine, and two years of supervised released; Fish, of Minnesota, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, six months’ home confinement, a $48,750 criminal fine, and two years of supervised released; and Fish’s company, BDF Enterprises, was sentenced to a $234,000 criminal fine.

“Americans are becoming increasingly reliant on online marketplaces, making it more important as ever to protect them from being cheated on the internet,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Manish Kumar of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “These sentences reflect the Division’s commitment to seeking punishment for criminal antitrust violations wherever they may occur.”