Nebraska
Lincoln prison worker accused of smuggling cellphone, drugs
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An employee has been accused of smuggling a cellphone and drugs to inmates at the Lincoln Correctional Center.
Lancaster County Court records say 27-year-old Dana Johnson, of Seward, is charged with unlawful acts by a corrections employee. The records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for her.
A court document says Johnson told an investigator that she’d developed a relationship with an inmate and smuggled a phone to him. She also acknowledged delivering a package that she knew contained illegal drugs to another inmate. The document says she was paid $700 for the delivery.
Johnson’s next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7.
South Carolina
Charge dropped against woman who escaped serial killer
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped a domestic violence charge against a South Carolina woman who survived being held captive by a convicted serial killer.
The Greenville News reports prosecutors dismissed charges against Kala Brown and her boyfriend last week after finding they couldn’t be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Brown told authorities she punched her boyfriend in the face after he “bucked” her with his chest during an argument in July.
Brown’s earlier partners died violently.
Authorities ruled that her fiance killed himself in February with a self-inflicted stab wound to the chest.
Brown went missing in 2016 and was found chained in a shipping container by Todd Kohlhepp, who eventually admitted to killing seven people including Brown’s boyfriend.
Florida
Woman gets prison for $1.6 million family curse scam
MIAMI (AP) — A South Florida woman who claimed to be a psychic fortune teller has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison for taking $1.6 million from a Texas woman to remove a curse from her family.
Court records show that 28-year-old Sherry Tina Uwanawich was sentenced last week in Miami. She previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud. She must also pay restitution.
Investigators say Uwanawich met the victim in Houston, Texas, in 2007. Uwanawich gained the woman’s trust and convinced her that a curse had been placed on her and her family. Uwanawich claimed she needed large sums of money for crystals and candles to perform meditations that would lift the curse.
The scheme ended in 2014 when Uwanawich admitted to the victim there had been no curse.
Kentucky
2 accused of trading stolen prescription drugs, child porn
WILLIAMSON, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky man is accused of trading stolen prescription drugs with a woman in exchange for sexual photos and videos of herself and a minor.
News outlets report 31-year-old Jacob West and 27-year-old Kena Reed were indicted Monday on charges including human trafficking and tampering with physical evidence. The Pike County Sheriff’s Office says deputies last month began investigating the theft of more than 5,000 pills from a local pharmacy.
It says the investigation led to an employee, West, and determined that he was exchanging the nearly $9,000 worth of pills with Reed for child porn.
West also is charged with theft by unlawful taking of a controlled substance. Authorities didn’t immediately detail the juvenile’s connection to Reed or West. It’s unclear if either have a lawyer.
California
Leaders of ministry charged with forced labor
EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) — A dozen leaders of a California-based ministry were arrested Tuesday on charges that they used homeless people as forced labor, holding them in locked group homes and forcing them to panhandle up to nine hours a day, six days a week, U.S. prosecutors said.
The former pastor of Imperial Valley Ministries, Victor Gonzalez, and the others were arrested in San Diego, El Centro near the Southern California border with Mexico and Brownsville, Texas. They face charges of conspiracy, forced labor, document servitude and benefits fraud.
The El Centro-based ministry has about 30 affiliate church throughout the United States and Mexico and runs five group homes in Southern California, authorities said.
Dozens of victims, many of them homeless and some as young as 17, were lured to the group homes by the promise of food and shelter until they were able to return home.
Instead, the ministry that billed itself as rehabilitating drug addicts kept them inside deadbolted group homes, took their personal belongings and identification documents and refused to return them, stole their food stamp and welfare benefits and in some cases threatened to take away their children if they left, according to a grand jury indictment filed Aug. 23 and unsealed Tuesday.
“The indictment alleges an appalling abuse of power by church officials who preyed on vulnerable homeless people with promises of a warm bed and meals,” U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer said at a news conference. “These victims were held captive, stripped of their humble financial means, their identification, their freedom and their dignity.”
“Windows were nailed shut at some group home locations, leading a desperate 17-year-old victim to break a window, escape, and run to a neighboring property to call police,” said a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Ministry members told people that “they would not receive transportation home, or that loved ones had rejected them and they must stay because ‘only God’ loved them. Punishments for violations of home rules, including talking about the outside world, allegedly included the withholding of food,” the statement said.
In addition to panhandling up to 54 hours per week to provide money to the church, some victims were refused medical treatment, the indictment alleged.
A diabetic woman was refused medicine, supplies and food for her low blood sugar but managed to escape and seek help, authorities said.
Another woman was refused treatment for a prolapsed uterus, the indictment alleged.
A man who answered the phone at the ministry’s headquarters Tuesday night declined to comment or be named but said the church would be posting comments on its website in a couple of days. An email message seeking comment was not immediately returned.
All the alleged victims that have been identified are now free and support services were available for them and for any additional victims that are found, authorities said.
