Court Digest

Massachusetts
Woman gets probation for theft of Social Security benefits
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman who for almost two decades continued to receive more than $200,000 in Social Security benefits intended for her late mother-in-law has been sentenced to probation.

Sue E. Delaney, 68, formerly of Lunenburg, was ordered by a federal judge Tuesday to spend the first six months of her two-year probationary period in home confinement and to pay more than $220,000 in restitution, the Telegram & Gazette reported.

Delaney pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy and theft of public funds.

Delaney’s mother-in-law died in 1999, prosecutors said, but the government was not notified. Up until March 2017, she and her husband accepted monthy Social Security payments up of up $1,300 deposited into a bank account to which they had access, authorities said.

Delaney’s lawyer said that his client’s husband, who died last year, was responsible for the deception.

But prosecutors noted that Sue Delaney’s name appeared most often on checks cashed from the mother-in-law’s account and that she lied when asked whether her mother-in-law was alive.

The money was used to pay the couple’s mortgage and for monthly trips to casinos, prosecutors said.

Delaney apologized in court. She has already paid about $100,000 in restitution, her attorney said.

North Dakota
Appeals panel revives women’s hockey lawsuit
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — An effort by 11 former University of North Dakota women’s hockey players to bring back the program that was dropped in 2017 got new life on Tuesday when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the players’ lawsuit.

The original complaint alleged that when the Grand Forks school dropped hockey it violated Title IX laws that prohibit women from being treated differently because of gender. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland said the suit did not show a “substantial disproportionality” between men’s and women’s athletic opportunities in relation to the respective enrollments of men and women.

The players appealed in October and a three-judge panel ruled that the athletes may be able to state an actionable Title IX claim and have the case sent back to district court.

The school said in a statement that the 8th Circuit opinion “does not reach the substance” of its decision to eliminate women’s hockey.

“The Court did not suggest that UND’s decision was wrong, but rather relied upon a narrow textualist rationale in reversing the District Court,” the statement said. “We remain confident that UND’s decision will ultimately be upheld. UND’s actions were legally permissible and were in the best financial interests of the University.”

School administrators cited budget woes due to decreased support from the state when they dropped women’s hockey, as well as men’s and women’s swimming and diving. Prior to the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed two discrimination complaints related to the decision to get rid of women’s hockey.

The players said in their suit that the hockey program was “the most prominent and popular sport” for women at North Dakota. The team reached the NCAA quarterfinals two straight years when future U.S. Olympic stars Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux were on the roster. Several other former North Dakota players participated in the Olympics.

Attorney Daniel Siegel, who represented the players in the original lawsuit, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He said earlier that the issue should not be decided solely on proportionality but also on context.

“What I mean by that is that we’re not talking about the University of Miami, we’re talking about the University of North Dakota in a state and in a region where ice hockey is the most popular sport,” he said. “And girls and women are increasingly playing ice hockey, whether it’s at the high school, club or college level.

“Under these circumstances, we think that it’s apparent that the University of North Dakota is not treating female athletes as well as male athletes and we should be allowed to prove that,” he said before the appeal was filed.

Florida
Woman sentenced for collecting dead mother’s social security
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman has been sentenced to one year and six months in federal prison for collecting her mother’s Social Security payments for nearly five years after her death.

A federal judge in Tampa sentenced Tekia Middleton, 41, on Friday, according to court documents. The Bradenton woman pleaded guilty in May to theft of government funds.

Middleton’s mother was receiving Social Security Retirement Insurance Benefits when she died in September 2014, according to court records. Her death was never reported to the Social Security Administration, and the benefit payments continued. Prosecutors said Middleton continued to access the funds, totaling $51,755, and use them for her own personal expenses until June 2019.

As part of her sentence, Middleton must repay the stolen money.

New York
Ex-prosecutor sentenced to 5 years in suspect abuse scandal
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A former Long Island prosecutor was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Tuesday for helping cover up the police beating of a prisoner suspected of stealing sex toys and other items from a police chief’s vehicle.

Thomas Spota and one his top aides in the Suffolk County district attorney’s office, Christopher McPartland, were convicted in December 2019 on counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and civil rights violations.

“I hope not to die in prison alone,” the 79-year-old Spota told U.S. District Judge Joan Azrack before hearing his penalty, Newsday reported.

The once-respected law enforcement official also called his conviction “the lowest point” in his life and said he feared and expected it would be his legacy, Newsday said.

Azrack also gave McPartland a 5 years behind bars, saying, “This was not a momentary moral lapse but years of criminal coverup,” according to Newsday. In addition, the judge ordered Spota to pay a $100,000 fine.

In a statement, acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said the defendants had undermined the public’s faith in the criminal justice system.

“Instead of serving the people of Suffolk County, these defendants brazenly abused their exceptional positions of power and public trust to protect their friends and hurt their enemies,” Kasulis said.

Prosecutors had argued the men deserved 8 years behind bars for doing “the exact opposite” of their jobs in the face of a scandal that eventually engulfed the county’s law enforcement power structure. Lawyers for Spoto and McPartland, 55, had said home confinement was a more appropriate sentence.

According to prosecutors, then-Police Chief James Burke assaulted a shackled prisoner who was under arrest and being held in an interrogation room in 2012 at precinct in Hauppauge, New York. The prisoner “had broken into Burke’s official police vehicle and stolen his gun belt and ammunition, and a duffel bag containing cigars, sex toys, prescription Viagra and pornography,” the prosecutors said.

After the assault, the chief ordered high-ranking commanders to make sure “officers who had witnessed the assault would never reveal what they had observed,” prosecutors said. He also recruited Spota, a “long-time mentor” and McPartland, a personal friend who was chief of investigations and of an anti-corruption bureau, to join the scheme, they added.

At trial, an officer testifying as a key government witness linked Spota and McPartland directly to the conspiracy describing a 2015 meeting in Spota’s office that came after federal officials relaunched a probe into the beating. Spota demanded the officer find out if anyone in their sphere had “flipped,” he testified.

“Somebody’s talking. You better find out fast, if it’s not too late,” Spota said, according to the testimony.

Burke pleaded guilty in 2016 and was sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison. He was released to home confinement after serving most of his sentence.


Texas
3 men sentenced in beating of gay couple in Austin
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Three men won’t serve any additional jail time after reaching plea deals in an assault on a gay couple in downtown Austin.

The 2019 attack on Spencer Deehring and Tristan Perry inspired a rally at the Capitol and the creation of a citizens’ foot patrol, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Four men were charged in the beating, and three of them — Quinn O’Connor, Frank Macias and Kolby Monell — were sentenced last week after reaching plea deals for misdemeanor assault with a hate crime finding. Charges were dropped against the fourth man, Miguel Macias.

O’Connor and Monell were sentenced to probation while Frank Macias was sentenced to one year in jail but was already credited for time served in the Travis County jail.

Prosecutors have said Deehring and Perry were targeted because they are gay.

“We will not stop until the hate crime laws in Texas are enhanced to allow thorough prosecution of those committing such heinous crimes,” Perry and Deehring said in a statement Tuesday.

Attorneys representing the men charged have said the case did not meet the threshold to be considered a hate crime. Rhett Braniff, Frank Macias’ attorney, said Texas’ hate crime law says investigators have to “prove that the defendants selected the victims because of their bias.”

“What most of us felt, in this case, was that if a jury looked at the evidence here, they may not have come to that conclusion,” he said. “In other words, this was a fight between two groups of people, and it may have happened regardless of the sexual orientation of either of them.”

The case was “overcharged and motivated by misinformation,” Brian Erskine, Miguel Macias’ attorney, said in a statement. “Law enforcement enraged our community with a ruse of bigotry,” he added.

Arizona
Dominion sues Trump-friendly broadcasters over fraud claims
PHOENIX (AP) — Vote-counting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems filed defamation lawsuits Tuesday against right-wing broadcasters and a prominent Donald Trump ally over their baseless claims that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.

The suits single out Newsmax, One America News, their executives and the former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne. Dominion says their false claims that the company rigged the election for President Joe Biden have cost it $1.6 billion in lost profits, company value and reputational damage.

“We are filing these three cases today because the defendants named show no remorse, nor any sign they intend to stop spreading disinformation,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said in a statement.

Dominion filed defamation suits earlier this year against Fox News and Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow. They have all asked judges to dismiss the suits.

One of the nation’s leading providers of vote-counting machines and software, Dominion has faced a barrage of claims by Trump allies and supporters, including that the company was created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late leader Hugo Chavez and that it has the ability to switch votes.

Dominion says OAN and Newsmax trumpeted those false claims to boost their own profits at Dominion’s expense.

Law enforcement and election efforts, including Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, have confirmed that there was no election fraud sufficient to sway the results.

OAN founder Charles Herring did not respond to a text message seeking comment.

Byrne responded to a request for comment by texting a graphic purportedly plotting election results from a Senate runoff in Georgia.

Brian Peterson, a spokesman for Newsmax, said the company’s 2020 election coverage was based on allegations made by the president, his advisers and members of Congress.

“Dominion’s action today is a clear attempt to squelch such reporting and undermine a free press,” Peterson said in a statement.