Court Digest

Illinois
Chicago woman charged with fraud in death certificate scheme
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago woman has been charged with taking advantage of two crises facing the city — the pandemic and its surging homicide count — to defraud the government out of thousands of dollars in tax refunds and coronavirus stimulus payments.

Katrina Pierce faces federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to a criminal complaint made public Thursday. A judge ordered Pierce, who was sent to prison for a similar scheme nine years ago, to remain locked up pending trial. Her next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

According to prosecutors, Pierce obtained the death certificates for dozens of young homicide victims and used them to collect thousands of dollars in payments, the Chicago Tribune reported.

An investigation into Pierce began in late 2019 when a Cook County Vital Records Bureau employee noticed that on the same day, Pierce requested death certificates for four people who had different last names, claiming to be a sister of all of them.

A check of the bureau’s database revealed that she had requested 37 death certificates that year and succeeded in getting 26 of them, prosecutors allege. Among the ones she got was that of 7-year-old Amari Brown, who was fatally shot in 2015. According to the criminal complaint, Pierce was able to collect a $4,400 federal tax refund claiming to be the boy’s aunt.

Prosecutors also allege that Pierce filed a tax return for a St. Louis man declaring an income of $1 despite the fact that the man had been shot to death more than a year earlier. That netted her about $4,400 in coronavirus stimulus payments from the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the complaint, the IRS received a tax return for “Rajona Pierce.” That was an alias that Pierce had used in the criminal case that ended with her convicted of stealing more than $200,000 in federal tax and state child care benefits and being sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in 2012.

According to the complaint, in that return, Rajona Pierce reported $1 in income for a beauty salon that didn’t exist at an address that turned out to be a long-demolished public housing project on the city’s South Side.

Investigators also found that Rajona Pierce received a total of $3,200 in stimulus payments, according to the complaint and they suspect that Pierce “used multiple banks and accounts in an effort to hide or to launder the proceeds of her various schemes”,” according to the complaint.

The complaint does not include an exact amount of money that Pierce allegedly made off with, but it makes clear that the total was in the tens of thousands of dollars. For example, it points out that Pierce deposited nearly $84,000 into a bank account during the last six months of 2020 even though she declared that she earned less than half of that amount on her income tax return for that entire year. This, the complaint contends, “suggests that Pierce may have an illicit source or sources of income that she wishes to conceal.”


Arkansas
Ex-deputy charged with manslaughter in white teen’s death
RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas sheriff’s deputy was charged Friday with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a white teenager whose death has drawn the attention of national civil rights activists.

A special prosecutor announced the felony charge against Michael Davis, a former sergeant with the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office, in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Hunter Brittain. Davis faces between three and 10 years in prison if convicted.

Davis shot Brittain during a June 23 traffic stop outside an auto repair shop along Arkansas Highway 89 south of Cabot, a city of about 26,000 people roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.

Davis told investigators he shot Brittain once in the neck during the traffic stop after the teen reached into the back of his truck and did not comply with his commands to show his hands, according to the arrest affidavit. Brittain was holding a container — which his family members have said held antifreeze — and no evidence of firearms were found in or near the truck, the affidavit said.

A passenger with Brittain said he and the teen had been working on the transmission for Brittain’s truck. The passenger told investigators he never heard Davis tell the teen to show his hands.

An attorney for Davis did not immediately return a message Friday morning.

Davis, who is white, was fired by Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley in July for not turning on his body camera until after the shooting occurred. Staley said there’s no footage from the shooting, only the aftermath.

Several members of Brittain’s family and friends shouted, “thank you Jesus,” as Phillips announced the charge. Phillips said a bond hearing for Davis would be held on Monday.

Jesse Brittain, the teen’s uncle, said he was glad to see Davis charged with something though he would have preferred a more serious charge.

“This is something,” he told reporters after the announcement. “We’re going to take this and see what else (Phillips) has got to say and hopefully this will stick. He won’t be an officer no more and he can’t kill no more kids.”

Brittain was eulogized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and two attorneys who represented George Floyd’s family. They said the teen’s death highlighted the need for interracial support for efforts to reform police practices. Brittain’s family and friends have regularly demonstrated outside the Lonoke County sheriff’s office, demanding more details on the shooting.

Floyd died in May last year when a white Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin the handcuffed Black man’s neck to the ground. His death sparked nationwide protests over policing and racial inequality.

Attorneys Ben Crump and Devon Jacob, who represent Floyd’s family, joined with Brittain’s family in calling the charge the “first step in the pursuit of justice for Hunter Brittain.” And Brittain’s family repeated its call for the Arkansas Legislature to require officers to wear body cameras that would be turned on as soon as their shift begins.

“Nothing will bring Hunter back, but we can honor his memory and legacy by calling for justice and change in his name,” the attorneys and family said in a statement.


North Carolina
Ex-officer behind infamous 1970 slayings ends release appeal
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A former Army doctor convicted for the infamous 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two young daughters on a North Carolina base has ended his appeal of a lower court ruling that denied his requested release.

An attorney for Jeffrey MacDonald said in court documents that his client wished to dismiss his appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. Federal prosecutors did not oppose the dismissal in the “Fatal Vision” case, named for a book about the investigation, and the court granted the dismissal Thursday.

MacDonald, who is serving life in prison, had filed an appeal notice in April, two weeks after District Judge Terrence Boyle refused to release him. His lawyers had asked Boyle to let him leave prison  because of his deteriorating health. Boyle wrote  he lacked authority because a law governing compassionate release requests doesn’t apply to those who committed their crimes before a 1987 cutoff.

“After a searching review of the relevant law, Mr. MacDonald concluded that the decision below was correct as a technical legal matter,” MacDonald’s lawyers said in a statement Friday, referring to Boyle’s order.

MacDonald, 77, is incarcerated at a prison in Cumberland, Maryland, and has chronic kidney disease, skin cancer and high blood pressure, according to court documents.

MacDonald was convicted in 1979 for killing his pregnant wife, Colette; 5-year-old daughter, Kimberley; and 2-year-old daughter, Kristen at their family home at Fort Bragg using a knife and ice pick before stabbing himself. MacDonald has declared his innocence and spent years on appeals.

MacDonald has blamed “drug-crazed hippies” as the killers. But prosecutors said he donned surgical gloves and used his wife’s blood to write the word “PIG” over their bed to imitate the 1969 Charles Mansion murders.

The 4th Circuit refused in late 2018 to grant MacDonald a new trial.

MacDonald “did the unthinkable more than 50 years ago when he murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters in brutal fashion,” Norman Acker, acting U.S. attorney for eastern North Carolina, said in a news release Friday. The Raleigh prosecutor’s office prosecuted MacDonald in a high-profile trial and has defended the convictions since.

“Our office has sought justice on their behalf for decades. That work continues today,” Acker said. “And that work will continue every day until MacDonald’s efforts to escape justice cease for good.”

Florida
Ex-teammate pleads not guilty to killing Miami football star
MIAMI (AP) — A former University of Miami football player pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of killing a teammate outside a South Florida apartment complex in 2006.

An attorney for Rashaun Jones, 35, entered the plea during a remote court hearing after prosecutors formally filed second-degree murder charge against him.

Jones, who was arrested last month, was long suspected in the death of Bryan Pata, 22. Jones was originally arrested on a first-degree murder charge, and prosecutors said he could still face that charge. But to indict him on that charge, prosecutors would have to present the case to a grand jury.

Pata was expected to be an early pick in the 2007 NFL draft following his fourth and final season with the Hurricanes. The 6-foot-4, 280-pound (1.9-meter, 127-kilogram) defensive lineman was shot several times outside of his Kendall apartment the night of Nov. 7, 2006.

Some witnesses claimed to hear arguing and then gunshots. Despite having hundreds of dollars in his wallet, neither the car nor the cash were taken, police said.

Investigators said they learned through numerous interviews that Pata and Jones, who played three seasons with the Hurricanes, had experienced confrontations before the shooting. Pata previously beat his teammate during a fight, officials said. And Pata’s brother told investigators that Jones had threatened to shoot Pata two months before his death. Despite the urging of his brother, Pata never reported the threat.

During two interviews with detectives, Jones told investigators that he was at his own home and never left on the night of Pata’s death. But records show that Jones’ cellphone was using different cell towers around the time of the shooting, authorities said. And an eyewitness in the area at the time of the shooting identified Jones in a photo lineup, police said.


Indiana
Man gets 46 years in twin sons’ house fire deaths
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — A Lafayette man convicted in his twin 3-year-old sons’ deaths in a 2014 house fire has been sentenced to 46 years in prison.

Brandon Abbott, 38, was sentenced this week after a Tippecanoe County jury convicted him in June on 13 counts, including two counts of neglect resulting in death, in the April 2014 fire that killed twins Landon and Liam Abbott.

Abbott, who has been incarcerated since 2014, will have to serve half of his 46-year sentence, followed by six years of probation under the sentence handed down Monday, the  Journal & Courier reported.

Abbott was initially sentenced to 70 years in prison in 2015 after he pleaded guilty to two counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in death.

But a Tippecanoe County judge set aside his guilty plea, conviction and sentence in 2019 after Abbott applied for post conviction relief, saying his attorney didn’t advise him about the consequences of his guilty pleas in his sons’ deaths.

The boys died from smoke inhalation in the rented house near the town of Mulberry, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis, while on a weekend visit with their father.

Prosecutors said the fatal fire occurred after Abbott slept off a night of partying as his twins were left unattended downstairs.

Washington
Supreme Court urged to review ban on drug injection sites
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Supporters of a plan to open supervised injection sites to try to reduce overdose deaths urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to review a court decision that bans the practice.

The test case centers on a nonprofit group’s Safehouse project in Philadelphia, but officials in other states are watching closely as they debate similar programs. Nationally, more than 93,000 people died last year from drug overdoses, a sharp spike from just a year earlier.

A divided U.S. appeals court had rejected the Safehouse plan in January, although Philadelphia’s Democratic mayor and top prosecutor endorse it. The city itself lost 1,200 people to overdoses last year.

The nonprofit group’s plan to open a site was thwarted when former U.S. Attorney William McSwain, a President Donald Trump appointee now running for Pennsylvania governor, argued that it violated a 1980s-era drug law aimed at “crackhouses.” The district judge rejected McSwains’ argument, but the appeals court agreed with him in a 2-1 decision that nonetheless called the goal of harm reduction “admirable.”

Safehouse last month asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision.

The amicus brief filed Friday, signed by dozens of current and former prosecutors and law enforcement officials across the country, said Congress never intended the crackhouse statute to encompass harm reduction efforts offered by medical personnel. Supporters in Rhode Island, where state law now allows it, and in California, New Mexico and several other states, hope to open pilot sites themselves.

“People are in a bit of a waiting and watching game, to see whether the (Biden) Administration is going to criminalize it,” said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, the organization that coordinated the brief. “The waiting game has cost lives.”

The Justice Department has so far stayed neutral in the case, waiving its right to weigh in. McSwain’s successor, Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams, likewise declined to comment Friday.

Under the Safehouse plan, people could bring drugs to the clinic-like setting, use them in a partitioned bay and get medical help if they overdose. They would also have access to counseling, treatment and other health services.

“Its motives are admirable. But Congress has made it a crime to open a property to others to use drugs,” U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote for the U.S. Circuit panel, overturning a district judge who found the plan legal given its goal of reducing drug use — not promoting it — through counseling and other services.


Illinois
Chicago woman sues park district over son’s lake drowning
CHICAGO (AP) — The mother of a Chicago teenager who drowned in Lake Michigan last month is suing the Chicago Park District, alleging that his death could have been prevented if flotation devices had been available along the city’s lakefront.

Maria Diaz’s wrongful death lawsuit alleges that bystanders searched to no avail for flotation devices to help her 19-year-old son, Miguel Cisneros, as he was drowning Aug. 22 off a pier at Toby Prinz Beach Park.

She also alleges in the suit filed this week that prior to her son’s death, the park district had agreed to place 140 water rescue stations along Chicago’s lakefront, including a station at or near the beach or pier at Tobey Prinz Beach Park.
Park District spokesperson Michele Lemons said the agency would not comment on active litigation.

Cisneros drowned off Pratt Pier in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood after jumping off the pier for a swim. Last week, the city park district placed two sanctioned life rings at Prinz Beach Park, including one at Pratt Pier.

But Diaz said one life ring at Pratt Pier isn’t enough and she wants life rings installed along the city’s entire waterfront.

“This is not only about Miguel,” she said. “It’s about preventing other families from going through this tragedy.”

Cisneros, who lived in Brighton Park, was a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep and he was set to start his sophomore year at Columbia University this fall.