Court Digest

Maryland
Feds: Former FedEx manager took goods worth more than $3.25M
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Delaware man who stole goods worth more than $3.25 million while working at a FedEx facility has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for interstate transportation of stolen goods and tax evasion.

Prosecutors announced that Joseph Kukta, 45, of Laurel was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison in connection with his theft and resale of shipped merchandise, WMDT-TV reported. Kukta was also ordered to pay more than $1.1 million in restitution and forfeit more than $1.8 million.

Kukta, a senior manager at the Seaford FedEx facility, admitted taking packages and reselling items to co-defendant Saurabh Chawla for about 50% of their retail prices between 2009 and 2019, according to his plea agreement. Kukta would take stolen items to a relative of Chawla in Maryland. Kukta received more than $1.8 million in illegal proceeds.

In 2018, Kukta also started taking packages from FedEx trailers loaded for delivery to a Rehoboth Beach store, prosecutors said. He’d go to the facility when employees weren’t there and turn off the lights and block cameras to avoid being seen.

Kukta admitted to evading more than $660,000 in income taxes.

Chawla was previously sentenced to 66 months in prison on charges of conspiracy, interstate transportation of stolen goods and tax evasion.

Georgia
Woman accused of threatening judge over ballot review suit
MCDONOUGH, Ga. (AP) — A Kentucky woman is accused of threatening a Georgia judge and his family after he dismissed a lawsuit that sought to review absentee ballots from the 2020 election to see if any were fraudulent.

The Henry County Sheriff’s Office said Erin Northup, 42, is accused of leaving a threatening voicemail with the judicial assistant to Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Details of the call were not released.

Amero last week dismissed a lawsuit alleging fraud in Fulton County during last year’s election and sought a review of some 147,000 absentee ballots. The lawsuit relied heavily on sworn affidavits from several people who participated in a hand recount of the ballots and said they saw suspicious-looking ballots.

The ballot review effort in Fulton County was one of a number of similar reviews and audits sought by supporters of former President Donald Trump and others, alleging fraud during the 2020 general election. State and federal election officials have repeatedly said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Amero’s order dismissing the lawsuit said the nine voters who filed it failed to allege that they have been affected personally and individually and, therefore, lack standing to sue. His ruling came a day after the Georgia secretary of state filed a brief saying investigators were unable to find any counterfeit or fraudulent ballots that matched the descriptions given by the people who swore affidavits.

Northup is charged with making a terrorist threat, a felony. She was arrested by police in Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday and is awaiting extradition to Georgia, the newspaper reported. No one answered the phone Thursday at a number listed for Northup.

Montana
Media groups appeal ruling over closed GOP meeting
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Members of the Montana media are appealing a state judge’s ruling in a lawsuit over whether Republican members of a legislative committee legally held a secret meeting before voting on bills involving abortion and transgender health care.

The media groups, including The Associated Press, argued the meeting of nine of 12 Republican lawmakers on the 19-member House Judiciary Committee should have been open to the public.

State Rep. Barry Usher of Billings, the committee chairman, said he intentionally limited the February meeting to nine Republicans so he could close it because the group did not include a majority of the members of the entire committee.

District Court Judge Mike Menahan agreed, ruling in July that he was unwilling to say that when most of the majority party’s committee members meet, it constitutes a quorum whose discussions must be open to the public.

The media organizations, in an appeal filed with the Montana Supreme Court on Monday, argued that Menahan only ruled based on the definition of “meeting” in state law and did not address whether the closed meeting violated Montana’s Constitutional right-to-know provision.

Montana’s Constitution guarantees the public the right to observe the deliberations of public bodies or agencies of state government and its subdivisions, unless the demand of individual privacy outweighs the merits of disclosure.
The media groups pointed to a 2004 Montana Supreme Court ruling that found the then-commissioner of higher education’s closed meetings with upper-level employees of the university system were subject to the state’s open meeting laws, even if the committee didn’t have a set number of members or take votes.

Usher said he supports the public’s right to observe what its government is doing.

“Montana’s Constitution and state law spell out what is and isn’t a meeting that’s open to the public,” he said in a statement. “I was glad to see the District Court agree with the very clear fact that a fraction of a quorum is not a quorum and the members of my committee talking together followed Montana law. I’m hopeful the Montana Supreme Court will uphold that common sense ruling.”

The Montana Attorney General’s Office is defending Usher in the lawsuit.

In addition to The Associated Press, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of all five Montana newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises as well as the Montana State News Bureau; the Bozeman Daily Chronicle; the Montana Free Press; the Daily Inter Lake and other papers owned by Hagadone Media Montana; the Montana Broadcasters Association; and the Montana Newspaper Association.

South Carolina
Ex-councilman gets maximum for lying on gun application
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former South Carolina county councilman has been given the maximum 18-month sentence for lying about an indictment on child sex charges when he tried to buy a gun.

“If I could give you more, I probably would,” federal district Judge Mary Geiger Lewis told Kerry Trent Kinard when she sentenced him Wednesday for falsifying the gun purchase application.

With credit for time served, he will spend eight months in federal prison, news agencies reported. Lewis also ordered Kinard to pay a $5,000 fine and undergo a mental evaluation.

During a bond hearing just before the sentencing, Kinard’s wife, who had obtained a court order to keep him away, testified that the retired state trooper and former Bamberg County Council chairman had repeatedly threatened to kill her.

Kinard, 50, faces trial next month on charges that accuse him of — among other things — molesting a boy and trying to rape a girl. He was indicted in September 2020 and has pleaded not guilty.

When he applied in December to buy a pistol, Kinard stated that he was not under a felony indictment or a restraining order.

He pleaded guilty in April to falsifying the application.

Defense attorney Bakari Sellers told the judge, “My client pleaded guilty to a crime of stupidity,” the Post and Courier reported. Kinard wanted to protect himself after seeing threats against him online, the attorney said.
Lewis noted that Kinard had been told he wasn’t allowed to have any guns, The State reported.

“You have a judge who says you don’t need to have a gun, and then you go out and try to buy a gun,” she said.

Federal prosecutor Elliott Daniels said Kinard had a pattern of ignoring court orders, including a monthlong hotel stay after being ordered to stay with his brother.

He “lived as if the rules didn’t apply to him,” Daniels wrote in a sentencing memo.

He noted in court that Kinard had been a magistrate as well as a state trooper.

“He knows better,” Daniels said. “He was in some of the most powerful positions in his community.”

Texas
State urges Supreme Court to leave abortion law in place
WASHINGTON (AP) — Texas on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to leave in place its law banning most abortions and told the justices there's no reason to rush into the case.

The state filed its response Thursday to the Biden administration's call on the high court to block the law, the most restrictive abortion curb in the nation, and rule conclusively this term on the measure's constitutionality.

The court's intervention at this early stage, before a federal appeals court has ruled on the law, would be highly unusual but not unprecedented.

In its court filing, Texas defended an order by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed the abortion law to go back into effect after a lower-court judge put it on hold.

"In sum, far from being demonstrably wrong, the Fifth Circuit's conclusion that Texas is likely to prevail was entirely right," the state wrote.

The Biden administration argues the law is "clearly unconstitutional" because it bans abortions at roughly six weeks, long before a fetus can survive outside the womb. The Supreme Court's major abortion rulings make clear that states can regulate but not prohibit abortions before the point of fetal viability.

But the Texas law was written to evade early federal court review and, apart from a 48-hour period in early October, the effort has succeeded. Clinics have said abortions are down by about 80% since the law took effect last month, and women in Texas have flocked to clinics in other states to obtain abortions.

Texas also is opposing the Biden administration's call for the court to take up the abortion law and rule on its constitutionality, even though the 5th Circuit has yet to do so.

But the state said that if the court agrees to the Biden administration's request, it also should consider whether to overrule high-court rulings that reach back nearly 50 years guaranteeing a right to an abortion.

The court already has the issue on its agenda in a case from Mississippi that will be argued on Dec. 1.

Utah
Prosecutor: No more plea deals in gun-violence cases
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The top prosecutor in Utah’s most populous county will no longer offer to defendants accused of gun-related crimes in an effort to combat gun violence.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said Wednesday he was putting people “on notice” that his office will “throw the book at you.”

He cited the recently released 2020 Crime in Utah Report, which showed an increase in homicides from 2019 to 2020. Two-thirds of those homicides involved firearms, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The change means that gun offenders will have to plead guilty to more serious crimes or go to trial, likely resulting in longer sentences behind bars.

There would be exception if “evidentiary issues, legal or ethical prohibitions” prevent a conviction, Gill said.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown and Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said they hope the new policy will send a message to prospective criminals and will help halt the “revolving door” of individuals who are repeat offenders.

New Jersey
Man sentenced for credit card scam targeting crafts chain
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A California man who fled to Mexico after being charged in a widespread credit card scam involving arts-and-crafts retailer Michaels was sentenced Thursday to more than four years in prison, according to federal prosecutors in New Jersey.

Jose Salazar, 45, of Riverside, must also pay $617,534 in restitution and will have to serve five years of supervised release once he’s freed from prison. He had pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Salazar, who is also known as Tito, received a 51-month sentence. He and others were accused of installing bogus point-of-sale terminals at about 80 of the stores in 19 states during a three-month period in early 2011. The group stole about 94,000 debit and credit card numbers from the terminals and used them to create new cards and illegally withdraw cash, prosecutors said.

Salazar fled to Mexico after he was indicted in 2015, authorities have said, but was arrested in Mexico City in September 2020 and returned to the United States in January.