Court Digest

Maryland
DC man gets nearly 5 years for gun store theft
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Washington, D.C., man has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for stealing firearms from a Maryland gun store.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that Xyavion Lawrence, 20, was sentenced for theft of firearms from a federal firearms licensee’s inventory. Lawrence and another suspect broke into an Essex gun shop in Baltimore County in August 2019, officials said.

Surveillance footage showed Lawrence repeatedly backing a car into the store’s front door before going inside and taking the guns before fleeing in the car. Later, Lawrence showed several of the stolen firearms in a social media video while wearing the same clothes, mask and gloves used in the burglary, officials said. Investigators identified his forearm tattoo from the surveillance footage.

Lawrence’s plea agreement states that the ankle monitor he was also wearing placed him at the gun store at the time of the burglary, officials said.

Lawrence was carrying one of the stolen weapons from the burglary two days later when he was arrested, officials said. He told investigators that he stole six firearms from the store.
Lawrence was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Florida
Teenager, 14, charged after 6-year-old fatally shoots himself
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida teenager is facing charges after a 6-year-old boy fatally shot himself after authorities say he had left the gun out.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office arrested the 14-year-old on Wednesday and charged him with culpable negligence, one day after investigators say Danny Waye III accidentally shot himself.

The office told local media that Waye had been watching TV when he found the gun and started playing with it. The gun went off and the bullet fatally struck the boy.

The family says the gun had been brought into the house by a friend. Detectives say they charged the teen because he had the gun earlier and placed it where the youngster could find it.

Mark Shields, an uncle of the dead child, told the Florida Times-Union that the boy’s grandmother was at the home but was asleep when the accident happened. He called his dead nephew “a sweet, sweet boy” who was being raised by another uncle while his parents are in prison.

“It is just devastating. Everyone is hysterical,” Shields said.

Connecticut
Two men convicted of helping create attacks on computer systems
Two men from Estonia have been convicted of federal cybercrime charges involving ransomware and other attacks on computer systems around the globe.

Oleg Koshkin, 41, was convicted Tuesday by a jury in U.S. District Court in Hartford of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse as well as aiding and abetting computer fraud and abuse.

His co-defendant, Pavel Tsurkan, 33, pleaded guilty Wednesday to aiding and abetting the unauthorized access to a protected computer.

Prosecutors said Koshkin, a Russian national who lived in Estonia, and Tsurken who lived in both Estonia and Thailand, operated an online encryption service known as Crypt4U, which helped conceal malware infections from antivirus software.

That technology allowed hackers to infect computer systems around the world between September 2013 and December 2017, including in Connecticut, prosecutors said.

Koshkin “designed and operated a service that was an essential tool for some of the world’s most destructive cybercriminals, including ransomware attackers,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas McQuaid of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement. “The verdict should serve as a warning to those who provide infrastructure to cybercriminals: the Criminal Division and our law enforcement partners consider you to be just as culpable as the hackers whose crimes you enable — and we will work tirelessly to bring you to justice.”

One of the men’s clients was Peter Levashov, the operator of what became known as the Kelihos botnet, which gave him control over the computer networks he infiltrated, prosecutors said.

 Levashov used Koshkin’s technology to help him infect about 200,000 computers around the world before the Kelihos system was dismantled by the FBI, according to court documents.

He pleaded guilty in 2018 to charges including identity theft and causing intentional damage to a protected computer.

Koshkin, who has been in federal custody since his arrest in California in 2019, faces up to 15 years in prison at a sentencing scheduled for September 20. Tsurkan, who has been free on bond, faces up to nine years in prison when he is sentenced on September 27.

The FBI’s New Haven office investigated the case through its Connecticut Cyber Task Force.

Wisconsin
Justices order new trial for man who killed his brother-in-law
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A man convicted of killing his brother-in-law after he allegedly discovered child pornography on his computer deserves a new trial because a jury could decide he acted in self-defense, a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The justices ruled 4-3 that the jury that convicted Alan Johnson in 2017 should have instructed on self-defense doctrines.

A jury in Walworth County convicted Johnson in 2017 of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with the shooting death of his brother-in-law, Ken Myszkewicz.

Johnson testified during his trial that Myszkewicz married his sister when he was a child and verbally, physically and sexually abused him.

Years before Myszkewicz died, Johnson discovered what he believed was child pornography on Myszkewicz’s computer. Johnson went to the police but was told the evidence was “stale,” according to court documents.

Around midnight on an October night in 2016, Johnson snuck into Myszkewicz’s home in Whitewater armed with a gun and powered up Myszkewicz’s computer searching for more child pornography. Myszkewicz discovered him and attacked him, Johnson testified.

Myszkewicz was shot five times and died. Johnson said he didn’t remember seeing or hearing his gun fire but eventually told police he killed him. He was charged with first-degree intentional homicide using a dangerous weapon and armed burglary.

The jury ultimately acquitted him on the burglary count but convicted him of first-degree reckless homicide. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Johnson argued on appeal that trial Judge Kristine Drettwan should have instructed the jury that it could find that he acted in self-defense. Drettwan ruled that no reasonable person would believe that was true in Johnson’s case.

The Supreme Court found the evidence could support such a contention. Justice Brian Hagedorn, writing for the majority, noted that Johnson testified he wasn’t looking to confront Myszkewicz, that Myszkewicz had cornered him in the computer room and then attacked him.

“Even granting the unusual circumstance of seeing an unwelcome family member in one’s home, a reasonable jury could conclude that (Myszkewicz) engaged in an unprovoked physical attack on his brother-in-law to harm and possibly kill him,” Hagedorn wrote. “Even though Johnson was not able to describe what happened in detail and why he made the decisions he did when the attack began, a reasonable jury could still infer that Johnson responded with the level of force necessary to stop the attack.”

Justice Annette Ziegler wrote in dissent that the ruling sends a message to home invaders should carry guns, shoot first and later claim they were afraid to avoid convictions.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice, which defended Johnson’s conviction, had no immediate comment.


Massachusetts
Man convicted of trying to set fire to Jewish assisted living facility
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A man has been convicted of using a homemade bomb to try to set fire to a Jewish-sponsored assisted living facility in Massachusetts last year, federal prosecutors say.

John Rathbun, 37, of East Longmeadow, was convicted by a jury this week in U.S. District Court in Springfield of attempting to transport or receive explosive devices and attempting to maliciously damage or destroy personal property in an attempt to kill, injure or intimidate, according to a statement Wednesday from the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.

Sentencing was scheduled for Nov. 12. Rathbun faces up to 15 year in prison.

Rathbun placed a 5-gallon (19-litre) canister containing gasoline with a Christian religious pamphlet as the wick outside the entrance of Ruth’s House, part of Jewish Geriatric Services Lifecare, Inc. in Longmeadow on April 2, 2020, prosecutors said.

His DNA was found on the canister and wick, authorities said.

The facility is a Jewish-sponsored assisted living center for seniors of all faiths.

Rathbun’s lawyer said prosecutors did not present evidence that his client harbors any ill will toward Jewish people and plans to appeal.

Rathbun was convicted in November of lying to agents investigating the attempted arson, but a jury deadlocked on the arson counts, prompting a retrial.


Utah
‘Real Housewives’ star seeks fraud case dismissal
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Jen Shah and her defense attorneys have asked a federal judge in New York this week to dismiss charges against her in a fraud case because officers allegedly coerced her into waiving her Miranda rights when she was arrested in Utah.

Shah, 47, and her assistant have been accused in a telemarketing scheme that federal prosecutors say took advantage of hundreds of “vulnerable, often elderly, working-class people,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported. They both pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.

Shah faces multiple counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Prosecutors said the scheme enticed people to invest in an online “business opportunity,” and then sold them tax preparation or website design services, despite many of the people not owning computers.

Prosecutors accused Shah and her assistant of selling lists of potential victims that were generated from telemarketing “sales floors” in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and elsewhere. The sale floor owners allegedly worked with telemarketing operations in New York and New Jersey.

Shah was arrested March 30 by New York detective Christopher Bastos in Salt Lake City after she received a perplexing phone call. She believed the call was tied to an order of protection she has out against a man who once attacked her and was convicted of multiple felonies in New York. After the call, she received another call from Bastos believing it was also tied to the protective order.

Bastos, who told Shah to pull over as she was driving to a shoot in Utah, arrested her as a suspect in the telemarking fraud case. But as Shah asked whether she was going to jail, she told officials that Bastos made her believe she “might be in danger, and that the police might be there to help me.”

Shah’s attorneys are arguing that she was coerced, and pointed out that Bastos knew her history with the man, who prosecutors said was also involved in the scheme with Shah and her assistant.

“Although Ms. Shah waived her Miranda rights, she did not do so voluntarily, but rather as a direct result of law enforcement deception and trickery calculated to overpower her will,” her attorneys said.

Her attorneys have also said that prosecutors have not provided enough information for the case to proceed, arguing that she is accused of participating in a scheme with “unspecified co-conspirators in unspecified places and selling unspecified products and services to unspecified victims, while laundering the money through unspecified accounts with unspecified financial institutions at unspecified times over an eight- or nine-year period.”

Prosecutors have argued that they have turned over more than a million documents and the contents of hundreds of electronic devices, which defense attorneys argue make it impossible to understand or respond to specific claims.

Shah’s defense attorneys also argue she wasn’t the only one who Bastos lied to. They said some evidence was uncovered in searches authorized based on police statements that were inaccurate or incomplete.

They argued Bastos described Shah as “operator” of two companies that allegedly did business with the sales floors, but her attorneys said she was “middle management” of one, and not an employee of the other.
As a result, the attorneys argued Bastos falsely inflated Shah’s involvement.

Staff from the New York Police Department and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to The Salt Lake Tribune’s requests for comment.