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With the West Bengal Assembly bypolls around the corner, a recent analysis by the West Bengal Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has shed light on the profiles of candidates in the fray. The study reveals that among the 41 candidates contesting in the upcoming bypolls, seven have serious criminal cases pending, while another seven are crorepatis. <h2>Criminal cases: BJP tops the list</h2>The ADR analysis shows that out of the seven candidates with serious criminal cases, four are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and one from Congress. These cases range from non-bailable offences to electoral violations and financial fraud, with maximum punishments extending to five years or more. Offences in this category include serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping, and violations of the Prevention of Corruption Act or crimes against women. The bypolls will take place on November 13 in the constituencies of Coochbehar Sitai (SC), Haroa, Naihati, Medinipur, Taldangra, and Madarihat (ST). However, the affidavit for one candidate, independent contestant Pankaj Lohra from Madarihat (ST), could not be reviewed due to missing documents. <h2>Wealthiest candidates</h2>In addition to those with criminal cases, seven candidates declared assets exceeding Rs 1 crore. Congress leads in this regard, with three crorepati candidates, followed by the BJP with two, and the TMC and CPIM(L) with one each. According to the affidavits, the wealthiest candidate is TMC's <keyword id="23849799" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sanat-dey" source="keywords">Sanat Dey</keyword> from Naihati, who has assets worth Rs 4.9 crore, including Rs 1.8 crore in immovable property. Following him is BJP's Ananya Roy Chakraborty, who is contesting from Taldangra, with assets totalling nearly Rs 3 crore. TMC’s Shyamal Kumar Ghosh, running for the Medinipur seat, declared assets of approximately Rs 1.69 crore. On average, the candidates’ assets are valued at around Rs 58.14 lakh. In contrast to the wealthiest candidates, Kashikanta Barman from the Kamatapur Peoples Party (United), contesting from Coochbehar Sitai (SC), has declared the lowest assets, amounting to just Rs 5,000. This wide range of wealth highlights the diverse financial backgrounds of candidates in the bypolls. (With inputs from agencies)

West Bengal bypolls to feature seven candidates with serious criminal cases including murder and kidnapping

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Jennifer Ann Crecente, a high school girl murdered in 2006, recently reappeared as a chatbot on Character.ai.</li><li>Her father told BI that he discovered the bot on Wednesday — he never gave consent to use her likeness.</li></ul>Drew Crecente woke at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday to find a Google Alert on his phone about his daughter.It had been 18 years since Jennifer Ann, a high school senior and Crecente's only child, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Austin. Grieving, Crecente had started a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://jenniferann.org/">nonprofit</a> in her name, working since 2006 to raise awareness for teenage dating violence.But Crecente now learned she'd reappeared online, this time as an artificial intelligence chatbot on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dealmaking-for-ai-startups-silicon-valley-2024-8">Character.ai</a>, run by a San Francisco-based startup that struck a $2.7 billion deal with Google in August.A wave of emotions struck Crecente — fury, confusion, and disgust all at once, he told Business Insider."Part of it was sorrow," Crecente said. "Because here I am, having to once again be confronted with this terrible trauma that I've had to deal with for a long time."Crecente had no idea who created the chatbot or when it was made. He only knew that Google had indexed the bot that morning and sent him the alert at 4:30 a.m., which he'd set up to keep track of any mention of his daughter or his nonprofit.Character.ai chatbots are typically created by users, who can upload names, photos, greetings, and other information about the persona.In Jennifer Ann's case, the bot used her name and yearbook photo, describing her as a "knowledgable and friendly AI character who can provide information on a wide range of topics."By the time Crecente discovered the bot, a counter on its profile showed it had already been used in at least 69 chats, per a screenshot he sent to BI.<div type="image" title="Jennifer Ann Crecente's now-deleted AI chatbot page on Character.AI." height="593" width="1216" msid="113947207" hostid="261" sizebytes="34616"></div>The website also listed Jennifer Ann as an "expert in journalism" with expertise in video game news. Her uncle, Brian Crecente, founded the gaming news site Kotaku and co-founded its competitor site, Polygon.Drew Crecente said he contacted Character.ai through its customer support form, asking the company to remove the chatbot mimicking Jennifer Ann and to retain all data on who uploaded the profile."I wanted to make sure that they put measures in place so that no other account using my daughter's name or my daughter's likeness could be created in the future," he said.He received an automated response containing his case number but no further information.His brother, Brian, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://x.com/crecenteb/status/1841482321909653505">tweeted an angry message</a> about the chatbot that morning, asking his almost 31,000 followers for help to "stop this sort of terrible practice." Character.ai <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://x.com/character_ai/status/1841508095316611373">responded</a> to Brian's post on X an hour and a half later, saying the Jennifer Ann chatbot was removed as it violated the firm's policies on impersonation.But Crecente says he's gotten nothing but silence from the company, despite reaching out to Character.AI on Wednesday."That is part of what is so infuriating about this, is that it's not just about me or about my daughter," Crecente said. "It's about all of those people who might not have a platform, might not have a voice, might not have a brother who has a background as a journalist.""And because of that, they're being harmed, but they have no recourse," he added.Character.ai spokesperson Cassie Lawrence confirmed to BI that the chatbot was deleted and said the company "will examine whether further action is warranted.""Character.ai takes safety on our platform seriously and moderates Characters both proactively and in response to user reports. We have a dedicated Trust and Safety team who review reports and take action in line with our policies," she said.She added that Character.ai uses "industry-standard blocklists and custom blocklists" to prevent impersonation.Still, Crecente said that the company should have reached out to apologize and show that it would further protect his daughter's identity. He is now seeking legal options."It's just indescribable that a company with so much money appears to be so, I guess, indifferent to re-traumatizing people," he said.<h2 id="427bfe31-c473-4926-bb5b-fe1c77f5461c">Using AI to revive the dead</h2><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-make-money-china-grieving-raise-dead-griefbot-2023-5">AI has been used to create personas of dead people before</a>, including many who hope it can help them grieve the loss of a loved one. But the practice has raised ethical questions about the deceased's consent, especially if the "resurrected" persona died before the advent of AI.Crecente's case is yet another example of new legal and ethical territory that AI has introduced to the world, Vincent Conitzer, head of technical AI engagement at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, told BI.Conitzer said questions remain about the extent to which AI companies should be held responsible for content created by their users."This is not quite impersonation in the sense that it seems transparent that it is an AI model," Conitzer said of the chatbot mimicking Jennifer Ann. "But it also isn't, for example, a parody. What rights do we have to our own style, mannerisms, and view of the world?"As the world debates these AI dilemmas, the consequences are already deeply affecting people like Crecente.Sue Morris, director of Bereavement Services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told BI that unexpectedly seeing a deceased loved one's likeness still hits hard many years after they've passed, because our memories of them are hard-wired into our brains."That he wasn't aware that his daughter's likeness was being used, would no doubt have been a huge shock and added to the feelings of confusion and anger he was experiencing," Morris said of Crecente.<h2 id="289d2327-8811-4331-8208-47dbe33b9234">Character.ai: Wildly popular and tied to Google</h2>Character.ai was founded in November 2021 by former Google engineers <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-characterai-ceo-noam-shazeer-chatbot-2023-4">Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas</a>. Shazeer was a lead author for the tech giant's milestone Transformer paper and had worked to build an AI-powered chatbot there, but left with De Freitas when Google declined to publish the product at the time.<div type="image" title="Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, the cofounders of Character.ai, standing next to a stairway." height="3459" width="5200" msid="113947208" hostid="261" sizebytes="493460"></div>The idea behind their new startup was to let the public make their own bots, which they call Characters. These now include a smorgasbord of user-created personas modeled after public figures, such as Elon Musk, rapper Nicki Minaj, and actor Ryan Gosling.Character.ai's October 2022 beta launch logged hundreds of thousands of users in its first three weeks of testing, per <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/07/characterai-google-lamda/">The Washington Post.</a> In March 2023, the company raised $150 million at a valuation of $1 billion, led by Andreessen Horowitz.Google Play Store statistics show that, as of press time, the app was downloaded more than 10 million times on Android devices alone.In August, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/noam-shazeer-google-ai-deal-d3605697">Google paid the startup $2.7 billion</a> to re-hire Shazeer and De Freitas, 20% of its staff, and acquire all of Character.ai's models that had been worked on so far.After the team shake-up, the company's new interim CEO, Dominic Perella, told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.ft.com/content/f2a9b5d4-05fe-4134-b4fe-c24727b85bba">The Financial Times</a> on Wednesday that the firm would focus entirely on its chatbot services, abandoning its past effort to build a large language model.Google did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

A girl murdered in 2006 was just revived as an AI chatbot — and her family had no idea

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Netflix has released a true crime drama and a documentary about the Menendez brothers' high-profile '90s trial.</li><li>But both projects leave out two new pieces of evidence that were made public in 2023.</li></ul>Netflix has released both a true crime drama and a documentary about brothers <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monsters-where-are-lyle-and-erik-menendez-brothers-now-2024-9">Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez</a>, who killed their parents in 1989. But neither mentions new evidence that the pair are using to appeal their life sentences.The brothers were sentenced in 1996 for murdering <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monsters-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story-cast-real-life-netflix-2024-9">José Menendez and Kitty Menendez</a>, but decades later audiences are still obsessed with their story, motivating Hollywood and streamers to find new ways to tell it.The drama "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story-gets-wrong-2024-9">Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story</a>" was an instant hit when Netflix released it in September, and has stayed at the top of its most-watched chart since.This was followed by the release of "The Menendez Brothers" on Monday, a new documentary about the trial, which features new interviews with the pair. A title card at the end of the documentary briefly mentions that the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023 to vacate their murder convictions.Here's what to know about the petition.<h2 id="4a3b5c0f-69ea-4436-a5a8-9a87efb71de3">Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez's attorneys believe new evidence could prove their father abused them</h2><div type="image" title="A composite image of two smiling young men with dark hair wearing dark blue suits and red ties." height="900" width="1200" msid="114045516" hostid="261" sizebytes="34952"></div>The brothers admitted to killing their parents before their first trial, so the jury was tasked with understanding why.While the prosecution argued the pair wanted their parents' money, the brothers claimed that they acted in self-defense because their father physically and sexually abused them, enabled by their mother. They said they feared their father would eventually kill them.The brothers' first trial ended in 1994 with a hung jury. In the second trial, Judge Stanley M. Weisberg made several changes, including limiting testimonies related to the brothers' abuse claims, and removing the jury's option of voting on a manslaughter charge. The jury's had to decide whether the brothers were guilty or not guilty of murder, and chose the former.The brothers' appeal petition filed last year, which journalist Robert Rand, who has reported on their case since the '90s, shared on X, includes a letter<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monsters-erik-menendez-emotional-meeting-actor-portraying-him-netflix-2024-9"> Erik Menendez</a> sent to his cousin Andy Cano a year before the murders. In the letter, he writes that he is avoiding his father and alludes to being afraid of him. The petition also includes a declaration from Roy Roselló, a former member of the boyband Menudo, who was signed to the record label where José Menendez was an executive. He claimed José Menendez drugged and raped him when he was a teenager, and made him perform sexual acts on two other occasions.The brothers' attorney hopes this will prove they were defending themselves against abuse to get the lesser charge of manslaughter.<h2 id="2487328d-54f6-47e2-ad34-765102239721">The creators of "Monsters" and "The Menendez Brothers" didn't want to get involved in the case</h2><div type="image" title="A man with short gray hair and stubble wearing a navy blue blazer with white piping. He's holding a microphone." height="4000" width="6000" msid="114045513" hostid="261" sizebytes="697346"></div>This new evidence was released partway through the production of "Monsters" and "The Menendez Brothers," which may explain why it wasn't included."The Menendez Brothers" producers Ross Dinerstein and Rebecca Evans told<a target="_blank" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/the-menendez-brothers-netflix-documentary-case-updates-1236024856/"> The Hollywood Reporter</a> last week that they've been working on the documentary for four years and wrapped shooting in 2023.Evans said: "The habeas was filed in 2023, and so for us, when we were making the documentary, we felt like, we're not here to litigate a case. We're not here to present evidence, or new evidence in that way, alongside the attorneys. Our feeling was that this was a story that took place then, and this was all of our research on it.""Monsters" was also likely written before May 2023, even though the production was delayed due to the writers and actors strike in 2023."Monsters" co-creator<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monsters-creator-ryan-murphy-angers-families-true-crime-2024-9"> Ryan Murphy</a> told<a target="_blank" href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/ryan-murphy-menendez-brothers-retrial-monsters-backlash-netflix-1236157104/"> Variety</a> last month: "I believe in justice, but I don't believe in being a part of that machine. That's not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story."He added that the series was "the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years" because it rekindled public interest in their case.George Gascón, Los Angeles County District Attorney, told a press conference on Thursday that his office was reviewing the case to resentece the brothers. Gascón said his department had received "a lot of calls" from people asking about the appeal after "Monsters" premiered.But Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, previously told<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-monsters-help-menendez-brothers-case-legal-experts-2024-10"> Business Insider</a> that a true crime series must present solid evidence to make a difference in a courtroom."In terms of it being the best thing that ever happened, only if it leads to evidence to actually overturn the case, which I still think is a real upward battle," she said.

The latest updates on Lyle and Erik Menendezs' murder case that the Netflix shows about them miss out

The <keyword id="19895346" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Calcutta-High-Court" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Calcutta High Court" meta.hostid="153" meta.entityid="Calcutta High Court">Calcutta High Court</keyword> on Thursday directed the <keyword id="19896633" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="CBI" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="CBI" meta.hostid="153" meta.entityid="CBI">CBI</keyword> to file a report by September 18 on detestable posts being made on social media regarding the <keyword id="22813393" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rape-murder-victim" source="keywords">rape-murder victim</keyword> of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital. The body of the on-duty trainee doctor was found in the seminar room of the state-run hospital on August 9, triggering nationwide outrage. The CBI is investigating the case from the second week of August on an order of the high court. The petitioner prayed in the PIL that the CBI be directed to investigate the <keyword id="22008077" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="cyber-offences" source="keywords">cyber offences</keyword> in connection with the "unfortunate and brutal incident." The court asked the Additional Solicitor General Asok Kumar Chakrabarti, representing the central agency, whether it could find a way to block these types of posts. The division bench, presided by Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam, directed the joint director, CBI, Kolkata, to look into the grievance expressed by the petitioner with regard to the issue of such abominable <keyword id="20074678" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-media-posts" source="keywords">social media posts</keyword>. The bench, also comprising Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, directed the CBI joint director or any other competent officer to file a report in this regard by September 18, when the PIL will come up for hearing again along with other petitions relating to the August 9 rape-murder of the doctor. After the order was dictated, Chakrabarti submitted before the court that the CBI does not have any separate wing to investigate such cyber crimes. Maintaining that the state police has a special unit to monitor such matters, he prayed that the <keyword id="20054502" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="West-Bengal-government" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="West Bengal government" meta.hostid="153" meta.entityid="West Bengal government">West Bengal government</keyword>'s cyber crime branch be also directed to file a separate report. The court said that it would consider the prayer on the next date of hearing.

Calcutta High Court seeks CBI report on nasty social media posts on RG Kar hospital rape-murder victim

<ul class="summary-list"><li>"This is the Zodiac Speaking" details the hunt for a serial killer in the 1970s.</li><li>The Netflix docuseries explains that police suspected Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer.</li></ul>"This is the Zodiac Speaking" examines five murders that took place in San Francisco between 1968 and 1969, which were thought to be committed by the same man.He was dubbed the Zodiac Killer because he sent letters to the police and various newspapers in San Francisco referring to himself as "the Zodiac." These writings contained clues about his identity and mysterious cryptograms, leading to much speculation over who the culprit was and his motive.He claimed in some notes that he had murdered 37 people, but that was never confirmed. Police suspected a man called Arthur Leigh Allen, a convicted sex offender, may have been the Zodiac Killer.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-reindeer-real-stalker-martha-scott-true-crime-psychologist-2024-5">True crime has become a core part of Netflix</a>'s business, and the show follows hits including "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-golyar-now-cari-farver-death-netflix-lover-stalker-killer-2024-2">Lover, Stalker, Killer</a>" and "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asunta-case-true-story-real-what-happened-basterra-porto-2024-4">The Asunta Case</a>."Here's what happened to Allen.<h2 id="cd3aac74-a1c4-440f-ba11-4428e6cf89e9">DNA evidence didn't point toward Allen.</h2><div type="image" title="Two blurry mugshots showing a bald man holding a card that reads &quot;Allen, Arthur L.&quot;" height="1213" width="2864" msid="114857758" hostid="261" sizebytes="54076"></div>As detailed in the series, the police considered Allen a suspect in 1971 after his friend, Don Cheney, told the authorities that he made remarks about "'shooting tires on the school bus and picking the little darlings off as they come bouncing out of the bus.'"It's similar to a line in one of the Zodiac's letters, which threatened to "shoot out the front tire and then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."The San Francisco Police Department found hunting knives and a freezer filled with dead animals in Allen's trailer. The documentary included audio from police inspector David Toschi, in which he said: "We came away a little depressed. I thought we would find more."In 1974, Allen was arrested and charged with child molestation. He pleaded guilty and spent three years in Atascadero State Hospital, California, and was released on a suspended sentence in 1977.In 2002, police inspector Kelly Carroll told the<a target="_blank" href="https://www.sfgate.com/national/article/partial-dna-fingerprint-clears-only-suspect-in-1098479.php"> San Francisco Chronicle</a> that DNA evidence didn't point toward Allen."Arthur Leigh Allen does not match the partial DNA fingerprint developed from bona fide Zodiac letters," he said."It really comes down to DNA. Without it, you have nothing," Vallejo police detective Terry Poyser<a target="_blank" href="https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article210320689.html"> told The Sacramento Bee</a> in 2019. "It's a 50-years-old case."<h2 id="425a1ce5-9b23-4d6f-a914-096960414faf">Arthur Leigh Allen maintained his innocence and died in 1992.</h2><div type="image" title="A blurry screenshot of a video interview featuring a bald man in an open-collared blue shirt. There are white curtains behind him." height="1202" width="2855" msid="114857755" hostid="261" sizebytes="45132"></div>Allen died on August 26, 1992, at his home in Vallejo, California, of arteriosclerotic disease. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/author-web-site-claim-sfpd-let-zodiac-escape-3055039.php">In a 1991 interview with The Examiner</a> Allen maintained his innocence, and claimed to have received a document from the Department of Justice that said he was not the Zodiac Killer.However, he couldn't produce the document and stated that police had seized it when searching his property."This damned thing has been haunting me for 22 years," Allen said "If I was prone to suicide, I'd already have done it... The only thing in my favor is, I've never killed anyone."He added: "No way in hell I could go out and kill innocent teenie-boppers, no way. But with (the police), I'm guilty until I'm proven innocent, and I figure the case will be around until I die."

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West Bengal bypolls to feature seven candidates with serious criminal cases including murder and kidnapping

BI India Bureau

A girl murdered in 2006 was just revived as an AI chatbot — and her family had no idea

Matthew Loh

The latest updates on Lyle and Erik Menendezs' murder case that the Netflix shows about them miss out

Ayomikun Adekaiyero

Calcutta High Court seeks CBI report on nasty social media posts on RG Kar hospital rape-murder victim

PTI

Netflix's 'This is the Zodiac Speaking' tells the story of the hunt for a serial killer. Here's what happened to murder suspect Arthur Leigh Allen.

Eammon Jacobs

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