National Roundup

New York
Couple sentenced for scamming  friends, family out of $760K
UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — A central New York couple accused of bilking friends and acquaintances out of $760,000 in an investment scheme were sentenced to prison and probation, authorities said Thursday.

David Wright, 53, and Ramona Wright, 54, of Sherrill defrauded more than two dozen people in a scheme involving a rehabilitative hospital bed marketed by their former company, Wright Wellness Solutions of Sherrill in Oneida County, Attorney General Letitia James said in a release.

The Wrights instead spent their clients’ money on a yacht, two luxury SUVs, Rolex watches, a Florida timeshare and their daughter’s wedding in addition to stealing $100,000 in cash.
David Wright was sentenced earlier this week to two-to-six years in prison, and his wife, Ramona Wright, was sentenced to five years probation.

The Wrights claimed the company would develop, market and sell the hospital bed patent they had obtained the rights to by trading shares in the corporation to an unsuspecting inventor, authorities said.

The couple created the company in 2009 while they were deep in debt and facing potential foreclosure on their home, officials said.

The couple pleaded guilty in September to grand larceny and fraud charges after being arrested in April in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on the 53-foot yacht they bought with the stolen funds, authorities said.

The Wrights have forfeited nearly $400,000 so far in restitution to the victims, including the $175,000 yacht, officials said.

Kentucky
Retrial nixed for man previously convicted in 1980 slaying
GUTHRIE, Ky. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a murder charge in the retrial of a Kentucky man previously convicted in the death of his girlfriend.

A prosecutor moved to dismiss Norman Graham’s charge last week, partly because of affidavits by the family of Janice Kay Williams that said they didn’t want to relive the events in another trial, the Courier Journal reported.

A third trial also wouldn’t be likely to result in a conviction, meaning it wouldn’t serve the public or Williams’ family, Logan County Commonwealth’s Attorney Neil Kerr said.

The 21-year-old Williams was found dead in a trailer rented by Graham in the summer of 1980. She had been raped, stabbed in the chest more than 20 times and her throat had been cut, according to court records and the newspaper’s account.

Graham had said he’d been out drinking and was asleep in his car outside the bar during the killing, according to court records. He told authorities he found Williams’ body upon returning home and alerted police.

At the time, forensic science couldn’t determine whose semen was on Williams’ jumpsuit, court records say. Graham was tried in her death in 1981 and freed by a deadlocked jury.

More than 20 years later, a state police officer said new evidence came to light and Graham was retried. Prosecutors reexamined the DNA evidence in 2003 and found that it matched Graham’s DNA to a statistical probability of one out of 506 trillion people, court records say. Graham was found guilty of murder and rape and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

He was freed and granted a new trial in 2017 after new evidence implicated another man, Roy Wayne Dean Jr., who has since been convicted of killing two women in a similar manner to Williams. The only difference in the crimes was the murder weapons, according to court records.

One of Dean’s ex-wives told authorities that Dean described the scene of Williams’ murder to her as if he had personal knowledge of it. She testified that she believed Dean is guilty of far worse than she initially imagined when they were married. She said she suspected Dean was a thief, having come home with odd scratches, bloodied pants and, on occasions, women’s wedding rings. She testified she had come to believe those were connected to women who vanished from the areas where Dean lived, court records say.

Two women, who were young teens at the time of the slaying, told the court they were playing hide-and-seek that night when they heard a woman’s scream. One of the women is a sister of a Dean who lived in an adjoining trailer. She testified that she then saw her brother covered in blood outside Grahams’ trailer on the night of the killing. She said Dean hushed her and ran off, but she later noticed that his hand was cut and bloody. The court determined the women previously were too afraid of Dean to come forward with their testimony, records say.
Citing that and other evidence, Special Judge Kelly Easton granted Graham a new trial. By then, Graham was 70 years old and had been diagnosed with cancer. It’s unclear what he plans to do now that another trial isn’t looming before him.

Missouri
Fed. oversight of St. Louis County Family Court ends
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice is ending its oversight of the St. Louis County Family Court, saying the court is now in compliance with a 2016 agreement meant to ensure the fair treatment of juveniles, especially black juveniles.

The Family Court on Thursday released a letter dated Dec. 16 in which Steven Rosenbaum, chief of the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section, wrote that the required reforms had been implemented.

“We recognize the hard work that the Family Court has put into protecting the due process and equal protection rights of youth in juvenile justice proceedings through changed policies and practices,” Rosenbaum wrote.

The department began investigating the court in November 2013. The investigation was unrelated to the unrest that followed the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white police officer in Ferguson on Aug. 9, 2014, a shooting that led to months of unrest and spurred scrutiny of other courts in the St. Louis area.

The Justice Department’s family court investigation cited racial inequities in the treatment of defendants and concerns that defendants’ constitutional rights were often violated. The 2016 agreement required several changes, including doubling the number of defense attorneys available to represent indigent youths and ensuring that defense lawyers were appointed in a timely manner and properly trained.

The deal also barred police interrogations at the juvenile detention center unless an attorney for the youth was present, and it stressed that authorities make sure juveniles understand their rights before they can waive them. The family court also was required to adopt standardized hearings to ensure that juveniles’ pleas to delinquency charges are voluntary.

Family Court Administrative Judge Margaret T. Donnelly said the court also expanded its collaboration with schools, police agencies, faith-based groups and advocacy organizations.