Court Digest

Connectdicut
Judge tosses suit that sought to block transgender school athletes
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to prevent transgender athletes from competing in girls high school sports in Connecticut.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which oversees scholastic sports in the state, allows high school athletes to compete in sports according to their gender identity. The lawsuit was filed a year ago by cisgender runners who argued they were deprived of wins, state titles and athletic opportunities by being forced to compete against two transgender sprinters.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny  dismissed  the lawsuit on procedural grounds, saying in the ruling released Sunday that there was no dispute to resolve because the two transgender athletes have graduated and the plaintiffs could not identify other female transgender athletes.

The lawsuit had been closely watched since the Trump administration’s Justice Department and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights had sided with the plaintiffs. But the Biden administration withdrew that support in February.

Conservative lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced legislation  to ban or limit transgender athletes from competing on teams or sports that align with their gender identity. Laws banning transgender women and girls from participating in organized sports have been signed in Idaho, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Arguments in the Connecticut lawsuit centered around Title IX, the federal law that requires equal opportunities for women and girls in education, including sports.

Defense attorney Joshua Block argued the CIAC policy doesn’t deny any girl a meaningful opportunity to participate in sports, but that overturning it would violate the Title IX rights of transgender girls.

“No court, no agency has ever defined a participation opportunity as winning an equal number of trophies,” he argued.

The plaintiffs argue that the rights of cisgender girls under Title IX are being violated in Connecticut by being forced to compete against what they term “biological males.”

Plaintiff attorney Roger Brooks, from the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the law guarantees girls “equal quality” of competition, which he said is denied by having to race people with what he described as inherent physiological advantages.

The Alliance Defending Freedom said on Sunday that it will appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit.


Connecticut
Murder-for-hire trial will be state’s first in a year
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman who is accused of having her estranged husband killed is scheduled to have the state court system’s first criminal trial since the pandemic shut down courts in March 2020.

Larise King, 36, will face a three-judge panel on Tuesday. She is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and criminal liability for the acts of another.

The Connectict Post reports that the trial will be held in a courtroom that has been renovated for pandemic safety with plexiglass barriers.

“This trial is the first step in restoring the normal flow of business to the criminal court,” said State’s Attorney Joseph Corradino. “Not only are we going forward with this trial but we are looking forward to resuming jury trials in the near future.”

King’s husband, Dathan Gray, 32, was found lying in a street in Bridgeport in the early morning hours of July 27, 2019. He had been shot five times. Prosecutors say King hired a relative to kill her husband and waited nearby as Gray was shot to death.

King’s attorney, Michael Peck, told the newspaper that his client is innocent. “She didn’t kill him, let’s be clear on that,” Peck said. “It’s clear this was no great love story, this was no Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow and Robert Redford. But she didn’t do it, she didn’t conspire with anyone to do it. She didn’t order anyone to do it.”

The post-pandemic restart of jury trials  in the Connecticut courts has been pushed back at least until June, and Peck said he and King decided to have the trial before a panel of judges instead. He said his client is eager to get the case resolved.

“For someone who has never been incarcerated and has no criminal history this has been a difficult time for her,” Peck said.

South Carolina
Ex-sheriff is 13th convicted in state since 2010
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former South Carolina sheriff has been convicted in federal court of abusing his power and stealing money from government programs.

Ex-Chester County Sheriff Alex Underwood is the 13th sheriff in South Carolina to be convicted of criminal charges since 2010.

Underwood, 57, could face years in prison when he is sentenced in a few months. A jury on Friday found him guilty of conspiracy, wire fraud, deprivation of rights and federal program theft.

The felony convictions also ends Underwood’s 35 years in law enforcement, which included a long career as a State Law Enforcement Division agent before being elected sheriff in Chester County in 2012.

Convicted along with Underwood were two of his former deputies— Johnny Neal and Robert Sprouse — after a two-week trial.

The  investigation into Underwood started after he jailed a man for three days for no reason after the man recorded the aftermath of a police chase and wreck that happened near his home.

Underwood created a false police report when the FBI started to investigate that said the man stepped out of his yard into the public roadway and cursed at police, according to indictments.

FBI agents would later find Underwood skimmed overtime meant for his deputies, used taxpayer money to fly first-class to a Las Vegas conference with his wife and then tried to cover up that she went and had on-duty deputies work to build a party barn at his home, even pulling officers away from drug stakeouts, prosecutors said.

Underwood’s lawyer told reporters outside the federal courthouse Friday that he will appeal, although he wants to review the case before deciding the exact reasons.

During the trial, attorney Jake Moore pointed out what Underwood did for the community, like hold parties for his deputies at his newly renovated home. Moore also pointed out Underwood was being tried by prosecutors specializing in public corruption out of Washington.

“He is one of the finest people I have ever known,” Moore said.

Underwood joins a long list of sheriff convicted of crimes. Thirteen sheriffs in South Carolina’s 46 counties have either been found guilty by a jury or pleaded guilty since 2010.

They’ve committed a range of crimes - from using inmates for personal labor to running a drug operation to protecting people in the county illegally from being deported to creating false police reports of stolen credit cards to help a credit counseling business.

Five of the 12 sheriff sentenced so far initially were given prison time.

Underwood was suspended from acting as sheriff when he was indicted in 2019. Underwood ran for sheriff again in 2020 while awaiting trial and received 37% of the vote, losing to Max Dorsey, who was named interim sheriff when Underwood was arrested.

Missouri
Man sentenced after fraud schemes that netted about $800,000
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Florissant man was ordered to pay nearly $800,000 and sentenced to five years in prison for a fraud scheme, federal officials said.

Brandon Harper, 36, admitted using fake IDs and credit cards to defraud victims out of more than $500,000, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Missouri said in a news release.

The investigation began when police stopped Harper for a traffic violation and found several passports and IDs under different names, along with credit cards issued to other people and $15,000 in Amazon gift cards and cash.

During the investigation, officials discovered someone had diverted $400,000 in payments from a Catholic charity. Video showed Harper using a fake identification to withdraw $222,000 and put it in an account he controlled, prosecutors said.

While he was running that fraud scheme, Harper was working at a Office Max/Office Depot as a manager and cashier. The company’s loss prevention department discovered he made more than $20,000 in gift card transactions in one day and $150,000 in seven months, prosecutors said.

Harper pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced on Friday.

Florida
Woman involved in fatal crash, on probation for 2014 death
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman who was already on probation for a fatal traffic crash in 2014 was arrested Sunday following another crash that killed one of her passengers, authorities said.

Court records show Jennifer Carvajal, 24, was on probation after serving prison time for the previous fatality, which happened when she was 16.

Early Sunday, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper clocked Carvajal driving at 111 mph (179 kph) along a highway near Interstate 4 in Tampa.

As the trooper tried to overtake Carvajal’s car, she made a hard right turn that sent her Hyundai Elantra onto the road’s shoulder and down an embankment before it went airborne, the crash report said. The car struck a concrete light pole and a palm tree before overturning in the parking lot of a car dealership.

A 19-year-old front seat passenger was thrown into the backseat and two rear passengers were ejected from the car, the report said. The passengers were all taken to a hospital, where a 22-year-old later died from injuries suffered in the crash.

Carvajal was the only one in the car wearing a seat belt, troopers said in the report. She suffered minor injuries. She was later arrested and charged with reckless driving involving a serious injury, DUI involving a serious injury, DUI manslaughter, driving without a license and multiple counts of DUI property damage.

State court records show Carvajal served time in prison after she ran a red light and struck and killed a 52-year-old driver in Plant City in 2014. Carvajal was charged then with DUI manslaughter and driving without a valid license.

California
Violent arrest of autistic teen being investigated
VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A California police department is investigating a violent arrest last week of an autistic teenager by an officer responding to a report of a stabbing.

A door video camera recorded images as the teen was thrown to the ground and punched in the face April 21 in Vacaville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

Acting Vacaville Police Chief Ian Schmutzler said in a Facebook statement last Friday that concerns about how the arrest was handled were justified and the police department leadership was taking them seriously.

The teen, Preston Wolf, was being picked on and got a metal object to defend himself in the altercation that led to police being called, his father, Adam, told CBS13 Sacramento. That altercation was broken up before police arrived.

The camera recorded the officer approach as Preston stood on a sidewalk with a scooter. The youth sat down and then jumped up as if to run away. The officer caught him, threw him down and punched him during a struggle.

Schmutzler said investigators are examining “the initial call of someone actively ‘being stabbed’ to the descriptions provided by witnesses, the knowledge of a pipe or knife being involved, as well as the officer’s response, communication with other officers who were at the original scene, and all of the other questions that need answering.”

Investigators were also reviewing police dispatch recordings, body-worn camera video, the door camera video and other visual or audio evidence, he said.

Schmutzler said many people have asked whether the arresting officer knew that the youth had special needs.

“In the dispatch audio, there is a conversation between a dispatcher and a different officer (who was not on the scene) who asked whether the suspect was ‘Preston.’ Our preliminary review of the available video and radio traffic indicates the arresting officer did not have prior knowledge that the suspect was an individual with special needs,” the chief wrote.

He said the time stamps of the various sources were being confirmed to develop an accurate timeline.