National Roundup

Kansas
Charges dropped against priest accused of molesting girl
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Wyandotte County District Attorney has decided not to retry a Catholic priest who was charged with molesting a young girl.

Rev. Scott Kallal was charged with two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child after a mother reported in July 2017 that he had inappropriately touched her 11-year-old daughter at St. Patrick Catholic School in Kansas City, Kansas.

A Wyandotte County jury could not reach a verdict after a trial in September 2019. Prosecutors said at the time they intended to retry Kallal.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a statement Wednesday that the district attorney had decided to dismiss charges against Kallal.

The diocese said Kallal will remain on a leave of absence while a review board investigates the case. Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann will ultimately decide Kallal’s future.

A spokesperson for the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office said attorneys consulted with the child’s family and decided it was not in her best interest to try the case a second time, KSHB-TV reported.

Colorado
Forced medication approved for wildfire suspect, lawyers say
DENVER (AP) — A judge has approved the forced medication of a mentally ill Danish man accused of starting a wildfire that burned 149 homes in Colorado in 2018, lawyers said Wednesday.

The development was revealed during a court hearing for Jesper Joergensen in which one of his lawyers objected to the decision by a judge in a separate proceeding in Pueblo.

An order allowing Joergensen to be forcibly medicated for six months was issued at a hearing on Aug. 31 without any notice to the defense, attorney Jane Fisher-Byrialsen said. She said she planned to appeal it.

Aaron Pratt of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office said notice of the hearing was mailed to Joergensen’s other lawyer, David Lipka, but Lipka said he did not receive it.

Joergensen has repeatedly been found incompetent to go on trial for allegedly starting the Spring Creek Fire after being diagnosed with delusional disorder. His lawyers have said he has refused to take medication to treat his condition because his delusions make him believe he is well and does not need them.

Joergensen was moved in June to the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, where a psychiatrist recently recommended that he be forcibly medicated.

New York
NXIVM co-founder sentenced to 3 1/2 years in sex slaves case
NEW YORK (AP) — A former nurse who co-founded and once ran the cult-like NXIVM group, where prosecutors say some women were brainwashed, branded like animals and coerced into sex, was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in prison but won’t be locked up until January.

Nancy Salzman, the former president and co-founder of NXIVM, must also pay a $150,000 fine, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said. She has agreed to forfeit more than $500,000 in cash, several properties and a Steinway grand piano.

Salzman must report to prison by Jan. 19, Garaufis said. Her lawyers said she has been caring for her ailing mother.

Speaking in Brooklyn federal court, Salzman, 67, said she fell under NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s spell  when they started working together 20 years ago and that she started rationalizing and overlooking the wrongdoing she saw around her. She offered an apology to everyone she’s hurt.

“I don’t know that I can ever forgive myself,” she said.

Salzman, known within the Albany-based group as “Prefect,” pleaded guilty in March 2019 to charges of racketeering conspiracy that involved conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice. She was one of the first in the group’s leadership to plead guilty to criminal charges.

At that time, a tearful Salzman said she got mixed up with Raniere, a self-professed spiritual leader, because she wanted to help people improve their lives but that she ended up losing her way by helping spy on perceived enemies who sought to expose the group as a cross between a pyramid scheme and a cult.

At Salzman’s sentencing, Garaufis said she had positioned herself alongside Raniere “atop the NXIVM pyramid” and “left trauma and destruction” in her wake.

“In her misguided loyalty and blind allegiance to Keith Raniere, the defendant engaged in a racketeering conspiracy designed to intimidate NXIVM’s detractors and that inflicted harm on NXIVM’s members,” Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said in a statement after Salzman’s sentencing.

Raniere was sentenced last October to 120 years in prison for turning some women into sex slaves branded with his initials and sexually abusing a 15-year-old. The group attracted millionaires, including  Seagram’s liquor heir Clare Bronfman,  and Hollywood actors, including Allison Mack of TV’s “Smallville.”

Bronfman was sentenced a year ago to nearly seven years in prison. Mack was sentenced in June to three years in prison. Salzman’s daughter, Lauren Salzman,  was sentenced in July to five years of probation and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service for her role in the group.

Nancy Salzman’s crimes involved stealing identities of the group’s critics and hacking into their email accounts from 2003 to 2008, prosecutors said. She was also accused of conspiring to doctor videos showing her teaching NXIVM lessons before the recordings were turned over to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the group.

An NXIVM bio of Salzman posted on the internet said she was a consultant to New York state and major corporations “until she met Keith Raniere and discovered an approach to personal growth that yielded powerful and permanent results.”