Court Digest

Minnesota
Judge upholds charges against Duluth officer who shot man
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — A St. Louis County district judge has upheld charges against a Duluth police officer who shot an unarmed man through an apartment door last year.

An attorney for Tyler Leibfried argued the shooting was justified because the officer heard what sounded like gunfire coming from the apartment. Police were responding to a possible domestic violence incident last September.

Jared Fyle, 23, was struck by gunfire and injured. He told investigators the loud noise captured on the officers’ body cameras was caused by him kicking shut and locking the door, not gunfire.

Leibfried is charged with intentional discharge of a firearm that endangers safety and reckless discharge of a gun within a municipality. Each carries a maximum two years in prison and a $5,000 fine upon conviction.

St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin says it might be the first time his office is pursuing criminal charges against an officer for a shooting, the Star Tribune reported.

Judge Sally Tarnowski denied the motion to dismiss charges Monday, saying there is probable cause to sustain them.

Arizona
Judge: State GOP must pay $18K in groundless election suit
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Republican Party and its lawyers must pay $18,000 in attorneys’ fees that taxpayers were forced to pick up late last year to defend government officials against one of the party’s failed lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s victory in the state, a judge has ruled.

In a decision Friday, Judge John Hannah concluded the state GOP brought a groundless legal claim to court, filed its case for political reasons while claiming it was trying to protect election integrity, and failed to acknowledge it sued the wrong government officials. The financial award was made under a law that requires judges to assess attorney fees against lawyers or legal parties who bring claims to court without substantial justification or to delay or harass.

The judge wrote the GOP had in effect acknowledged it brought the lawsuit for an improper purpose when it said the suit was motivated by public mistrust after the election. “’Public mistrust’ is a political issue, not a legal or factual basis for litigation,” the judge wrote.

Hannah said the party didn’t make a serious effort before filing the lawsuit to determine whether its claims were valid and never named Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as the official responsible for carrying out the law at issue in the case and instead sued Maricopa County officials.

Jack Wilenchik, one of the attorneys representing the Arizona GOP, issued a statement saying the decision would be appealed and that the judge’s conclusion that public mistrust in an election is an improper reason for a political party to bring to court is “sorely disrespectful to the views of the many Americans whom I am proud to represent.”

Wilenchik said the order “encourages public distrust in the government for being openly hostile to them.”

Greg Safsten, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, didn’t immediately return a call Monday afternoon seeking comment on the decision.

Of the eight unsuccessful lawsuits challenging Biden’s win in Arizona, two were filed by the Arizona Republican Party and another case was filed by state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward.

No evidence of fraud or hacking of voting machines emerged from the election in Arizona.

The award of attorneys’ fees came in a lawsuit in which the state party sought a new audit of a sampling of ballots. While the Republican Party said the purpose of its challenge was to determine whether voting machines were hacked, Hobbs’ office argued the suit was a delay tactic aimed at undermining the certification of election results.

The county completed a hand-count of some ballots on Nov. 9 that showed its machine counts were 100% accurate. The same was found later during routine post-election accuracy tests on the counting machines.

Still, the GOP suit sought a new limited electronic audit of ballots that would be measured on a precinct level, rather than the audit that was conducted of the county’s new vote centers, which let people vote at any location across the county. The GOP argued state law requires the hand-count audit to be done on the basis of precincts and said county officials would still have adequate time to certify results.

Pennsylvania
Man with shotgun under pillow pleads in death of 3-year-old girl
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A western Pennsylvania man who told police he was sleeping next to a 3-year-old girl with a loaded shotgun under his pillow last year and awoke to a loud bang and found the child dead has pleaded guilty to a murder charge.

Fifty-two-year-old Marlin Pritchard of Pittsburgh pleaded guilty Tuesday to third-degree murder and a firearms charge in Allegheny County Court. Other charges were withdrawn. Prosecutors said there was no agreement in place on sentencing, which is scheduled for June 17.

Prosecutors said he told investigators he was sleeping next to the girl and another child in the home in the Belthoover neighborhood in February 2020 and had a pistol-grip shotgun under his pillow pointed in the direction of the children, authorities said. He said that after he heard the sound, he saw one child jump from the bed and run, but the 3-year-old girl didn’t move and he saw blood and a wound on her neck, police said.

Pritchard told investigators he slept with the gun because of threats from other people, authorities said. The Tribune-Review reports that his girlfriend told police she had been babysitting the girl and another child that night at the home.

New York
Radio host fraud victim complains to judge
NEW YORK (AP) — The successful revival of sports radio personality Craig Carton’s career just months after being released from prison has not gone unnoticed by at least one victim of his multimillion-dollar fraud.

An attorney for Dukal Corp. and its owner, Gerard LoDuka, has asked Carton’s sentencing judge that a restitution order be rewritten to reflect “what is almost surely an extremely lucrative job.”

The letter, dated Friday and entered into the court record on Monday, noted that Carton returned to the airwaves in November in a prime afternoon slot on WFAN that has “achieved dramatic ratings success” and he was reportedly being considered as a daily morning host on an MLB Network show.

Yet, the letter signed by attorney John G. Martin maintained, Carton, 52, has not made a single restitution payment since his June release from prison after serving about a year of a 3 1/2 year sentence that was reduced after he participated in prison rehabilitation programs.

The letter said an order requiring Carton to pay 15% of earnings toward nearly $5 million in restitution should be changed to reflect his career revival. Priority, it said, should be given to pay LoDuka and another person before a company with over $25 billion in assets that also lost money.

It also noted that he cited over $7 million in debts and a video job in lower Manhattan that paid only about $50,000 annually when he applied for bankruptcy last summer in New Jersey.

Carton’s lawyer, Derrelle Janey, said the letter’s restitution claims were wrong. Carton has not only made payments toward restitution since his release, but he made payments before he was imprisoned even before they were required, the lawyer said.

Janey said Carton has paid about $30,000 of the $435,000 owed to LoDuka.

“Most criminal defendants don’t have the opportunity to return to a place where they’re back at the starting line,” Janey said. “Mr. Carton is fortunate, by the grace of God, that he is at a position where he can return to the starting line.”

Still, the lawyer added, Carton makes “a fraction of what he previously made.”

Carton reportedly made about $2 million when he was paired with ex-NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason on a popular WFAN “Boomer and Carton” radio show before his 2017 arrest forced him out.

At his 2019 sentencing, Carton said memories of sexual abuse he suffered at age 11 were triggered by revelations about sex crimes by Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant Penn State football coach who was convicted of child sexual abuse in 2012.

He said he turned to blackjack and became a gambling addict, oblivious to winning and losing.

“I didn’t celebrate winning $4 million in three days ... in the Bahamas. I didn’t bemoan losing $700,000 in less than 24 hours a few weeks later in Atlantic City,” he said.

He credited his arrest as a “lightning bolt of awareness” that led him to Gamblers Anonymous and therapy.

Now, Janey said, Carton concentrates on his four children and his job.

“It sounds glamorous but it’s a very difficult job. It’s difficult to get it right and all eyes are on him, and the moment he gets it wrong, it’s over,” Janey said.

Nebraska
Man suspected in shooting of officer held on $10M bail
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man arrested in the shooting of an Omaha police officer last week during a shoplifting call has been ordered held on $10 million bail.

Kenya Lamont Jenkins Jr. would have to post 10% of the bail, or $1 million, to be released from jail pending the outcome of the charges against him.

Jenkins is charged with first-degree assault of a police officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and driving a vehicle to avoid arrest. Officer Jeffrey Wittstruck was called Friday afternoon to Westroads Mall after Jenkins was detained by mall security on suspicion of shoplifting a package of T-shirts. Prosecutors said in court Monday that a struggle between the officer and Jenkins ensued before Jenkins pulled a gun and shot Wittstruck four times, hitting the officer in the face and head.

The officer remains hospitalized in stable condition, prosecutors said, but suffered nerve damage in the shooting and faces a long recovery, including surgery.

Jenkins was arrested hours after the shooting following a high-speed vehicle chase on Interstate 80.

Prosecutors had sought $5 million bail at Monday’s hearing, but Douglas County Court Judge Darryl Lowe doubled that amount after prosecutors noted that Jenkins — who is originally from Chicago — has no direct ties to Omaha and a criminal record out of Arizona that includes resisting arrest and escape.

Massachusetts
Appeals court grants new trial in fatal bar attack
BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Appeals Court, citing improper conduct by the prosecution, has granted a new trial to a man convicted of killing another man in an unprovoked attack in a Quincy bar.

Paul Fahey was convicted of second-degree murder in 2017 for allegedly punching and stomping on the head of Keith Boudreau in the now-closed Home Ice Sports Bar in March 2015. Boudreau, 42, died days later at the hospital.

The court in its decision Monday called the prosecutor’s missteps “pervasive” and in many instances “egregious.”

“We agree with the defendant that a new trial is warranted based on the cumulative effect of the prosecutor’s improper cross-examination and inflammatory closing argument,” Milkey said in the decision.

The prosecutor called Fahey a “bully” 13 times during closing arguments.

The court said “it is improper for a prosecutor to use insulting names designed to evoke an emotional, rather than a rational, response from jurors.”

Fahey’s lawyer, Barbara Munro, praised the decision.

“The prosecutor’s conduct was pretty egregious and the Appeals Court agreed,” Munro told The Patriot Ledger.

The Norfolk District Attorney’s office plans to retry the case.

“We recognize that errors were made, as the court pointed out,” the district attorney’s statement said. “We are disappointed for the family.”


Virginia
Ex-president of escrow company pleads to fraud
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The former president of a Virginia escrow and title company has pleaded guilty to misappropriating $715,000 in closing funds connected to transactions for which she was the settlement agent.

A news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Norfolk said Tammy Hamrin, 57, pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Monday.

Hamrin, formerly known as Tammy A. Cheek, was the president of Preferred Escrow & Title in Virginia Beach.

Hamrin misappropriated closing funds from the company’s escrow account by making seven unauthorized wire transfers to different parties at the request of a person Hamrin had an “online personal relationship” with, the release said.

The release said Hamrin put approximately $199,000 of her own money back into the the escrow account, leaving it with a shortage of $516,000. The shortage left 48 real estate closings with insufficient funds.

Hamrin is scheduled to be sentenced on July 26, the news release said. She faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.