National Roundup

New York
Attorney for nearly two dozen Epstein accusers writes memoir
NEW YORK (AP) — The attorney of more than 20 alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein has written a book about his decade-long quest to bring the billionaire financier to justice.

Gallery Books announced Thursday that Bradley J. Edwards’ “Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein” will come out March 31.

“Edwards gives his riveting, blow-by-blow account of battling Epstein on behalf of his clients and provides stunning details never shared before,” according to Gallery, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. “He explains how he tracked Epstein’s criminal enterprise from Florida, to New York, to Europe, to a Caribbean island, and, in the process, became the one person Epstein most feared could take him down.”

The book was co-written by Brittany Henderson, a fellow trail lawyer based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York last summer. Accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, he had been indicted on federal charges more than a decade after he secretly struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of similar charges of sex trafficking. He pleaded guilty in 2008, the same year Edwards first heard from one of his accusers, to soliciting a minor for prostitution and served 13 months.

Federal prosecutors in New York reopened the probe after investigative reporting by The Miami Herald stirred outrage over the plea bargain.

Connecticut
Murder suspect’s possible guilty plea upsets victim’s family
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — An Ohio man charged with killing a Connecticut woman he met on a dating app will be allowed to plead guilty, upsetting the victim’s family.

Brandon Roberts, 27, charged with murder in the December 2018 killing of Emily Todd, whose body was found on a Bridgeport boat ramp with a gunshot wound to the head, appeared in court on Wednesday, according to The Connecticut Post.

He will be presented with a formal plea offer on Jan. 28. No details of the plea deal were disclosed, but it would likely mean a shorter sentence than a conviction at trial would bring.

Todd, a therapist at a Danbury senior center, met Roberts on a dating app. They had a few dates before she decided to call it off, the victim’s mother told police.

Roberts convinced Todd to meet him one more time, luring her to the area of the boat ramp, police said.

Robert’s was arrested in Shaker Heights, Ohio several days after the killing.

Missouri
Parolee in double homicide, 67, admits to drug trafficking
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas man has pleaded guilty to trafficking drugs in Missouri while on parole after spending 38 years in prison for killing an off-duty police officer and another victim in a bar robbery.

Robert Lucious Toney, 67, of Olathe, Kansas, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Jefferson City to distributing methamphetamine, possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute and crossing state lines in aid of a racketeering enterprise. He faces between 10 years and life in prison.

The U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release that Toney sold an undercover law enforcement officer 2 ounces (0.06 kilograms) of methamphetamine for $1,400 in December 2018 at a restaurant in Columbia, Missouri. He was arrested one month later when he met the undercover officer at a Kingdom City, Missouri, restaurant with methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine hidden under his car’s gas tank lid. The release said he was planning to sell the drugs to the officer for $3,200.

At the time, Toney was on parole for the 1973 conviction of killing an off-duty police officer and another customer during a bar robbery and assaulting two more customers. He was released on parole in 2010, the release said.

Florida
Man convicted of smuggling lizards from Philippines
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) —  A  Florida man pleaded guilty to his part in a trafficking scheme in which live water monitor lizards were stuffed into socks and concealed inside electronics to be smuggled from the Philippines to the United States.

Akbar Akram, 44, pleaded guilty in Tampa federal court Wednesday to one count of wildlife trafficking in violation of the Lacey Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Treaty, court records show.

Akram admitted to illegally importing more than 20 live water monitor lizards from the Philippines in 2016, a U.S. Justice Department statement  said. He avoided customs authorities by placing the lizards in socks, which were sealed closed with tape and concealed inside electronic equipment and shipped under a false label. The equipment was transported through commercial carriers to Akram’s associate in Massachusetts.

As part of his plea, Akram admitted that he knew the monitor lizards he received had been taken in violation of Philippine law and that the import violated U.S. law, according to the statement. Akram also admitted that upon receiving the monitor lizards, he sold some of them to customers in Colorado, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Approximately 70 monitor lizard species are characterized by elongated necks, heavy bodies, long-forked tongues, strong claws and long tails. The yellow-headed water monitor, the white-headed water monitor and the marbled water monitor are found in the Philippines.

Wisconsin
Competency exam ordered in 1976 murder case
MARINETTE, Wis. (AP) — A competency exam has been ordered for a man accused of killing a couple in a Wisconsin park in 1976.

Raymand Vannieuwenhoven, 82, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 25-year-old David Schuldes and 24-year-old Ellen Matheys at McClintock Park in Silver Cliff, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Milwaukee.

The exam, approved by a Marinette County judge this week, will determine if Vannieuwenhoven understands the court proceedings and can assist in his defense. The results will be discussed at a hearing Feb. 21, WLUK-TV  reported.

Vannieuwenhoven pleaded not guilty last year.

For decades, the widower and father of five grown children lived quietly among the 800 residents of Lakewood, a northern Wisconsin town surrounded by forests and small lakes.

Investigators didn’t have any leads until 2018, when a DNA lab identified the genealogical background of the suspect. Investigators say tests of Vannieuwenhoven’s DNA from a licked envelope matched DNA collected at the crime scene.