Court Digest

California
Tree trimmer charged in deadly throat-slashings
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A tree trimmer in rural Northern California has been charged in throat-slashing serial killings that left three people dead, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Ryan Scott Blinston, 37, of the small city of Oroville, was charged on Wednesday with murder, attempted murder and arson. The charges included special sentencing allegations that Blinston used a deadly weapon, attacked an elderly victim and committed multiple killings.

He could face life in prison without possibility of parole if convicted.

Blinston had been in jail since he was arrested last year and charged in another neck-cutting, authorities said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Blinston was working for a tree-trimming service in Butte and Tehama counties, north of Sacramento, last May and June when he returned to the clients’ homes after the work was completed and slashed the throats of the residents, according to prosecutors.

Loreen Severs, 88, of Los Molinos died and her husband, Homer Severs, 91, survived but died that December of an unrelated illness, authorities said.

Blinston also is accused of killing Sandra George, 82, and an acquaintance, Vicky Cline, 57, both of Oroville. He also is charged with torching Cline’s car.

“Blood and DNA evidence on and in Blinston’s car was forensically matched back to Cline. Her body was later discovered by a fisherman in the Feather River near Belden,” said a joint statement from the Butte County and Tehama County district attorney’s offices, which filed the charges in Butte County Superior Court.

Blinston was arrested before dawn on June 14 — about a week after Cline vanished — by a Butte County sheriff’s SWAT team that had tracked him to a motorhome in heavily wooded and isolated Berry Creek, where authorities planned to arrest him on suspicion of burning Cline’s car, prosecutors said.

“As the team approached the motorhome, they heard the muffled screams of a man inside and loud banging on the outside of the motorhome. The banging turned out to be Blinston attempting to get into the motorhome with a hatchet,” the district attorneys’ statement said.

Blinston ran into the woods, refused to drop the hatchet and was captured after a short struggle and the use of a stun gun and pepper spray, authorities said.

Blinston had met the 50-year-old owner of the motorhome earlier then stayed over because he told the man he was afraid to leave after dark because of bears, the resident told authorities.

The man said he was sleeping when he awoke to find Blinston attacking him with a knife, Butte County District Attorney Michael L. Ramsey said.

Blinston slashed his neck but the man said he was able to kick him out of the motorhome and lock the door, Ramsey said.

A medic treated the seriously injured man and he was airlifted to a hospital.

The SWAT team may have saved the man’s life, Ramsey said, because the isolated area had no cell phone service and it was unlikely anyone would have heard the man’s cries for help.

Blinston pleaded not guilty to attempted murder in that case last year.

There was no immediate word on a motive. Blinston had previous arrests, including in 2013 for allegedly driving a stolen Lexus and being in possession of three guns taken in burglaries.

However, none of his previous arrests involved the level of violence seen in the attacks, Ramsey said.

North Carolina
Former VA employee sentenced for conspiring to accept bribes
NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man has been sentenced to two years in prison for conspiring to accept bribes in exchange for steering grants to a construction company.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Daniel Bruce Ross of Hope Mills worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Fayetteville as an agent for the Specially Adapted Housing grant program. The program provides federal funds to eligible veterans with certain severe, service-connected disabilities to build new, adapted homes or modify existing homes.

Acting U.S. Attorney G. Norman Acker III said in a news release that Ross directed more than $1 million worth of grant projects to All American Home Renovations in exchange for payments from the company’s owner and operator at the time. Agents cannot recommend a particular builder, the news release said, and SAH agents must inform the veteran that they may choose their own builder.

Acker said Ross routinely advised his supervisors to approve grants to veterans in which AAHR was improperly designated as a particular veteran’s choice for builder. In fact, Ross misled the veteran to believe the Fayetteville company was chosen by the VA. AAHR concealed the payments to Ross by transferring the money to a dormant business he owned.

Maryland
Judge approves $577M settlement for four HBCUs
ANNAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $577 million settlement in a lawsuit over underfunding at Maryland’s four historically Black colleges and universities.

The deal approved Wednesday will provide $555 million in extra funding over 10 years, beginning in 2023, for Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University in Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.

The total amount includes $22 million in legal costs for the plaintiffs who spent 15 years litigating these claims.

The lawsuit accused Maryland of underfunding the institutions while developing programs at traditionally white schools that directly competed with them, draining away prospective students.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake found that the state had maintained “a dual and segregated education system” that violated the Constitution. Blake issued an order Wednesday stating the settlement adequately addresses the problem.

The funds are expected to go toward scholarships and financial aid as well as faculty recruitment and development. Funds also can be used to expand and improve existing academic programs, including online programs, and to develop and implement new academic programs.

The Maryland General Assembly passed legislation this spring finalizing the settlement. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan had vetoed a similar bill last year, saying he would approve no more than $200 million, The Baltimore Sun reported.


Illinois
Man pleads guilty to stealing $800K from disabled children group
CHICAGO (AP) — The former executive director of a suburban Chicago nonprofit created to help children with disabilities pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges he stole more than $800,000 from the organization.

Stuart Nitzkin, 45, of Deerfield, Illinois, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud during an arraignment conducted by video conference before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis.

A  criminal information  made public last week alleged Nitzkin stole more than $831,000 from Organization A. However, online records show the nonprofit was the American Friends of the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. The group is the U.S. chapter of a charity founded in 1960 that specializes in the physical and psychological rehabilitation of Israeli children and youth.

Nitzkin was accused of using funds stolen between April 2011 and September 2016 to pay personal expenses, including luxury vacations with his family to Ireland, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Florida; personal golfing expenses; thousands of dollars in tickets to Chicago Bulls games and other sporting events.

Prosecutors said Nitzkin was paid about $150,000 a year to raise money for the organization. Nitzkin’s attorney, Adam Sheppard, said Friday the charity was “a cause to which (Nitzkin) was deeply devoted” and that he’s since worked to repay what he allegedly took from the group.

“I misused organizational funds for my own personal use, your honor,” when Ellis asked what he did.

The judge set Nitzkin’s sentencing for Aug. 3.

Wisconsin
Appellate court rejects most of shaming sentence
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Wisconsin Court of Appeals on Wednesday threw out part of a woman’s shoplifting sentence that required she tell the management of any store she entered that she was on supervision for the offense.

Markea Brown, 28, of Milwaukee, pleaded guilty in 2018 to felony retail theft for helping steal $2,655 worth of merchandise from Pleasant Prairie Outlet Mall.

Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder, who sentenced Brown to 15 months in prison and two years of extended supervision, said he feels that “embarrassment does have a valuable place in deterring criminality.”

The appeals court said it doesn’t believe that a broad public notification requirement promotes rehabilitation and it could make it hard or impossible for Brown to buy groceries or other necessities if she is asked to leave those stores.

“We do not see where such a requirement would start and stop,” the court said.

The appellate court did uphold Schroeder’s condition that Brown not go to the Pleasant Prairie Outlet Mall during her supervision, the Journal Sentinel reported.

“The condition is narrowly tailored to the physical location of Brown’s crime,” the court wrote. “Moreover, it is reasonably related to Brown’s rehabilitation, as it will remove her from the temptation of reoffending there, which, in turn, protects the victim from further theft.”


Montana
Judge blocks requirement for ‘gay sex’ offender registration
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The state of Montana has no valid reason to require a man to register as a sex offender based on his conviction for having gay sex in Idaho in 1993, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen on Tuesday prevented the state from requiring Randall Menges of Butte to register as a sex offender under Idaho’s Crimes Against Nature law.

“None of the governmental interests in maintaining a sexual offender registry are served by Menges’ inclusion,” Christensen wrote. “Engagement in intimate sexual contact with a person of the same sex, without more, cannot be said to render someone a threat to the public safety.”

The state was wrong in not allowing Menges to challenge the registration requirement even though his conviction in Idaho was for actions that are now constitutionally protected, the judge found.

“I guess I’m just grateful, honestly, that the judge actually listened and was fair because for the last few years of my life .... I don’t feel like anything’s been fair,” Menges said Wednesday.

Christensen ordered the state to remove Menges from the registry on or before May 21, expunge any records indicating he was ever subject to registration and alert all agencies that may have been provided information about Menges’ registration.

The attorney general’s office is appealing the ruling, arguing it weakens the state’s sex offender registry law and opens it up to additional challenges from out-of-state lawyers “who are more interested in politics than the safety of Montana children,” spokesperson Emilee Cantrell said in a statement.

“You don’t violate someone’s constitutional rights to strengthen your own laws,” Menges said after hearing the state’s reason for appealing the decision.

Montana’s sexual offender registry law states that if people are required to register in another state, they are required to register in Montana.

Menges, 45, filed the lawsuit in December, arguing the registration requirement violated his constitutional rights. His complaint also said the registration requirements were hurting his ability to find employment and housing.

“This case involves the lingering effects of centuries of homophobic ‘sodomy’ prohibitions,” his attorney Matthew Strugar wrote in the original complaint.

After hearing arguments on the case, Christensen found the registration requirement was an ongoing violation of Menges’ rights to due process, equal protection and privacy.

“Montana is imposing adverse legal consequences on Menges for engaging in the sort of conduct constitutionally protected by Montana’s right of privacy,” the judge wrote.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court found that sodomy laws, which typically ban oral and anal sex, are unconstitutional.

Strugar and the American Civil Liberties Union are suing Idaho over its law that criminalizes oral and anal sex. Menges, who served seven years in prison for his 1994 conviction, is a plaintiff in that case as well.