Court Digest

Arizona
Ruling: Patient interviews on harm risk aren’t confidential
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona court ruing says mental health patients aren’t entitled to confidentiality by clinical social workers regarding statements the patients make during interviews to evaluate whether they might harm themselves or other people.

The state Court of Appeals’ ruling Tuesday said clinical social workers aren’t providing behavioral health services when interacting with patients only once to make evaluations on risk of farm.

The ruling stemmed from two patients’ objections to testimony by social workers during court hearings on involuntary treatment of the patients.

The patients argued that they had confidential relationships with the social workers but the Court of Appeals disagreed.

The court’s ruling said the social workers hadn’t provided treatment and did tell the patients from the outset that comments on risks of harm wouldn’t remain confidential.

Virginia
Former broker failed to answer calls, returned to prison for 5 years
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — After a halfway house couldn’t reach a former Newport News investment broker on home confinement, he was taken into custody to serve another five years in prison.

The Daily Press reports  that Jeffrey Martinovich took daily calls for more than a year to prove he was home, but he said he didn’t hear the calls that night in May.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has deemed that an “escape” from his home detention in a 2013 federal financial fraud case. A petition asking a federal judge to reverse the decision says GPS signals from Martinovich’s electronic monitor, the Bureau of Prisons’ own evidence, show he was home and no one tampered with the monitor.

The Bureau of Prisons hasn’t filed a response and a spokeswoman declined to speak about the case.

Martinovich, the former CEO of MICG Investment Management, was convicted of 17 financial fraud counts. Jurors found that he had schemed to inflate the appraisal of a company to boost performance fees that he and the company garnered.

He later pleaded guilty to using investors’ money to pay for his trial lawyer, and was sentenced to 13 years and eight months on the 18 charges.

Florida
Ex-deputy gets 12 years for planting drugs during stops
MARIANNA, Fla. (AP) — A former Florida sheriff’s deputy received a 12-year prison sentence for planting drugs inside drivers’ cars during traffic stops and then arresting them.

Former Jackson County deputy Zachary Wester, 28, did not speak at Tuesday’s hearing. He was convicted in May on 19 of 67 counts, including racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence, perjury, false imprisonment and possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia.

Internal affairs investigators found the drugs hidden inside Wester’s patrol car in the summer of 2018, shortly before he was suspended. Prosecutors say it was ready-to-plant evidence that Wester used during his traffic stops. Body camera video also showed Wester holding what appeared to be baggies filled with drugs surreptitiously before searching cars after stopping them.

Prosecutors had to drop charges in nearly 120 cases involving Wester that occurred between 2016 and 2018 because of the accusations that he planted evidence.

Prosecutor Tom Williams had asked Circuit Judge James Goodman to sentence Wester to 15 years, saying he committed “an egregious breach of the public’s trust.”

“People voluntarily grant their government awesome powers they deem necessary for public safety and protection,” he said. “With that great power comes great responsibility. The defendant made choices to violate that trust and committed crimes against those people he was sworn to protect.”

Teresa Odom, one of Wester’s victims, told the judge the deputy had ruined her reputation and deprived her of time with her grandchild. Wester had stopped her for a defective brake light in 2018 and asked for permission to search her truck. She agreed. He claimed he found a baggie of methamphetamine in her purse — but body camera video showed him palming a bag before beginning his search.

Odom, who vehemently denied the drugs were hers when confronted by Wester, later pleaded no contest and received four years probation. That conviction has been thrown out.

“You robbed me of my credibility and being a mother and grandmother over the last two and a half years,” she said. “I wish you no ill will. But you’ll never know what you did to me until you have children of your own.”

Wester’s wife Rebecca and others begged Judge Goodman for leniency, saying he is a good, churchgoing man who volunteers in his community. More than 50 people sent letters to the judge in support of Wester.

“When that career ended, suddenly I watched a part of him and myself as well die,” Rebecca Wester said. “This blow is one that will not be overcome quickly, and honestly one we may never overcome. The Zach that is in the court before you today is a mighty man of God. Has been greatly missed, but the place he has been missed the most is in our home.”

Jackson County is located in the Florida Panhandle, northwest of Tallahassee.

Illinois
Smollett back in court for hearing about his lawyer
CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett returned to court Wednesday for the first time in a year for a five-hour hearing to determine whether one of the actor’s attorneys should be allowed to keep representing him in his case against accusations that he staged a racist and homophobic attack against himself.

The hearing had nothing to with the charges against Smollett, who is accused of  lying to police when he reported that two masked men attacked him in downtown Chicago in January 2019. But because the media and the public were not allowed to attend the hearing that began in the morning and lasted well into the afternoon, it was not clear exactly what was being said in the courtroom.

When Cook County Judge James Linn ordered the hearing, he said it centered on the question of whether Nenye Uche had a conflict of interest  after two key witnesses in the case said they spoke to him. The witnesses in question are brothers  who prosecutors said Smollett hired and paid to carry out what Smollett maintains was an attack.

After Uche joined Smollett’s legal team,  Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo alleged that Uche had spoken with the previously representing them and talked to them about the case. That could result in the judge determining the attorney has a conflict of interest that would require him to bar him from representing Smollett. Uche has denied talking to the brothers.

Linn will announce his decision regarding Uche at a later date, said attorneys emerging from the private hearing late Wednesday.

A court spokesman said the next hearing in the case of People v. Jussie Smollett will be on Zoom on Aug. 2, before Linn.

Gloria Schmidt Rodriguez, an attorney for the Osundairos, told reporters they were confident the judge would rule with prosecutors and disqualify Uche.

“I think enough evidence and proof was laid out today to support our position,” she said.

The hearing marks the latest twist in a case that has been full of them since Smollett — a Black, gay man who starred in the television show “Empire” — told police that he was walking down the street in the middle of the night when two men attacked him, doused him with liquid and looped a makeshift noose around his neck before running off.

What started as a search for Smollett’s attackers turned into allegations by police that Smollett staged the whole thing to further his career.

Smollett has maintained his innocence and has pleaded not guilty. But the allegations cost him his role on “Empire,”  made him the source of ridicule from everyone from basketball analyst Charles Barkley to comedian Dave Chappelle. And his contention that his attackers told him he was in “MAGA country,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” helped turn the incident into a national and international sensation.

Smollett has had court hearings throughout 2020 and 2021, but they have not been held in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


Vermont
Judge: Former Koffee Kup workers to get time off payments
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A judge has ruled that former employees of Koffee Kup Bakery must be paid out for paid time off they had accrued before the company shutdown in April.

Chittenden Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar decided Wednesday that the 500 employees of the bakery must be paid some $812,000 plus $16,000 in interest for paid time off, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.

The Burlington-based Koffee Kup, which includes the Vermont Bread Company in Brattleboro, and Superior Bakery in North Grosvenor Dale, Connecticut, closed abruptly in April due to financial problems.
Georgia-based Flower Foods purchased Koffee Kup Bakery’s assets in June.

Former employees received their final paychecks but then had the payouts for paid time off rescinded by the person overseeing the bakery’s assets.

The judge said he would dissolve the receivership once the bakery’s real estate assets were sold and create a new one to adjudicate the sale of the rest of the assets.

Other creditors are seeking to recoup some $2 million they say they are owed by the bakery. Those creditors include another bakery, transportation companies, former executives, landlords and a lobbying firm, the newspaper reported.

The judge has already  approved $8 million in payments to creditors, with the bulk of that going to KeyBank, the company’s primary lender.


Missouri
Police, civil rights groups settle protester case
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police in Kansas City, Missouri, have agreed as part of a lawsuit settlement to stop banning protesters from returning to areas in the city where the protests were held, civil rights groups said Wednesday.

The ACLU of Missouri and the MacArthur Justice Center sued Kansas City, Missouri, police commissioners last year challenging what they called an unconstitutional verbal banishment order.

“Now more than ever we must safeguard the right to protest from police overreach and violence — especially where protests are about the police themselves,” said Amy Breihan, co-director at the MacArthur Justice Center.

Police spokeswoman Donna Drake said in an emailed statement that the department is “grateful to have had this opportunity to work with the ACLU on these important First Amendment issues.”

“Since the summer of 2020, we have continued to make adjustments and changes to include our new First Amendment policy,” Drake said. “KCPD continues to work hard to support the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Kansas City.”

 The lawsuit stems from protests against police brutality and racial injustice last year at the Country Club Plaza, a popular dining and shopping district. About 100 people were arrested, including Theresa Taylor. When she was released on bail, police told her that if she returned to the Plaza she would be arrested and held without bail. A municipal charge alleging Taylor failed to comply with a police order to disperse was later dismissed.

The settlement also requires training on free speech and anti-bias and de-escalation practices as well as prohibiting officers from adding conditions of bond release beyond those imposed by the court or prosecutor.

Washington
Regulator sues Amazon to force recall of products
Safety regulators are suing Amazon to force it to recall hazardous products sold on its site, including flammable children’s pajamas, faulty carbon monoxide detectors and hair dryers that don’t protect users from getting electrocuted.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which filed the complaint late Wednesday, said the online shopping giant stopped selling some of the faulty products.

Amazon said in a statement that it was “unclear” why the safety commission filed a complaint when the company already removed the “vast majority” of the hazardous products, notified customers, gave refunds and asked shoppers to get rid of the products themselves.

The safety commission said Amazon’s actions were “insufficient” and it wants the company to do more, including issue recalls with the commission and destroy any of the goods sent back by customers.

The safety commission said it tested the products and found thousands of them to be hazardous.

Nearly 400,000 hair dryers didn’t have a device in the plug that protects users from being electrocuted when dropped in water. And 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors didn’t work when the gas was present.

The safety commission didn’t say exactly how many flammable sleepwear garments it found, but it said there were “numerous” children’s pajamas, night gowns and bathrobes that violated fabric safety standards and risked burn injuries to kids.