National Roundup

New Jersey
Man sentenced in hate group plot threatening Blacks, Jews
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man is going to prison for his role in conspiring with a hate group to threaten and intimidate properties owned by Black people and Jews throughout the country.

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Richard Tobin, 20, to one year and one day in prison. Tobin had pleaded guilty to conspiring against rights stemming from vandalized synagogues in Racine, Wisconsin, and Hancock, Michigan.

Tobin admitted he was a member of a white supremacist group and had directed members to destroy and vandalize properties affiliated with Black people and Jews, prosecutors said. They said Tobin labeled the coordinated attack “Operation Kristallnacht” after the 1938 Nazi attack against Jews in Germany.

The synagogues in Racine and Hancock were spray painted with hate symbols in September 2019.

Authorities said Tobin implored members to post flyers, break windows and slash tires belonging to Blacks and Jews.

“The defendant conspired with a white supremacist hate group to vandalize and destroy property owned by Jewish and Black Americans, intending to instill fear into those communities across the country,” assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke said in a statement.

A conspirator, Yousef Omar Barasneh, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights in federal court in Wisconsin, for his role in vandalizing the synagogue in Racine, authorities said.

Connecticut
Judge denies early release in boy witness murder case
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man convicted in the 1999 killings of an 8-year-old murder witness and the boy’s mother will not be getting out of prison anytime soon, a federal judge ruled Tuesday amid pleas by the victims’ relatives and prosecutors to keep him locked up.

Adrian Peeler sought a sentence reduction under a national criminal justice reform that would have made him a free man as early as next month. But Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven rejected that request, Hearst Connecticut media reported. Arterton said Peeler has shown no remorse for the killings.

Peeler was sentenced to 25 years in prison on a state murder conspiracy charge in the killings of Karen Clarke and her son, Leroy “B.J.” Brown, in Bridgeport. That sentence is scheduled to end as early as Dec. 12, but he would be immediately transferred to federal prison to begin serving a 35-year consecutive prison sentence for a federal drug dealing conviction.

Arterton, however, did reduce the federal sentence to 15 years to reflect current sentencing guidelines, and made it consecutive to the state sentence.

Peeler asked Arterton to change the federal sentence to time served in state prison under the federal 2018 First Step Act, which gives judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and eases mandatory minimum sentences.

“I take full responsibility for all my actions that led me to be here today,” Peeler told Arterton. “I sold drugs in the community. ... It is something I think of every day.”

Clarke’s brother, Oswald Clarke, pleaded with the judge to deny the sentence reduction.

“He had zero compassion for my sister and nephew,” he said. “This man should not be on the streets. He will kill again.”

Prosecutors have said Peeler, at the direction of his older brother, Russell Peeler, gunned down B.J. and Clarke in their Bridgeport home on Jan. 7, 1999. Authorities said the brothers wanted to eliminate B.J. as a witness against Russell Peeler in the 1998 killing of Clarke’s boyfriend, Rudolph Snead, a rival drug dealer.

Russell Peeler is serving life in prison for the killings.

Florida
Lawsuit: Condo collapse triggered by building work
Construction of a luxury building next door triggered the collapse of an already fragile Florida condominium that killed 98 people in June, according to a new lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday on behalf of Champlain Towers South victims and family members, contends that work on the adjacent Eighty Seven Park tower damaged and destabilized a building in dire need of major structural repair.

Champlain Towers, the lawsuit claims, “was an older building in need of routine repairs and maintenance, but it was not until excavation and construction began on the luxury high-rise condominium project next door” that the building became unsafe.

“The collapse was entirely preventable,” the lawsuit says.

Champlain Towers was in the midst of its 40-year structural review when it collapsed without warning in the early morning hours of June 24. The collapse has triggered multiple federal and state investigations and a flurry of lawsuits by victims, families and condo owners.

The lead investigating agency is the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which recently estimated its probe could take as long as two years.

The lawsuit contends that excavation, pile-driving and other work at Eighty Seven Park between 2016 and 2019 caused vibrations that weakened the shaky structure next door. In addition, groundwater was funneled from the new building to the Champlain Towers property basement after developers bought a small road separating the two, the lawsuit says.

This latest 169-page complaint is a potential class action that could represent all victims and their families. It was filed as part of an existing case in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court that also involves the planned sale of the Champlain Towers property to benefit victims.

The lawsuit does not cite a specific amount of damages but could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to attorneys involved in the case. The nine defendants include developers of Eighty Seven Park, an engineering firm, the Champlain Towers South condo association and a Miami law firm.

The defendants denied that construction of Eighty Seven Park was responsible for the building collapse. The 18-story building is located in Miami Beach immediately south of the Champlain Towers site in Surfside.

“As numerous media reports have documented, Champlain Towers South was improperly designed, poorly constructed, significantly underfunded and inadequately maintained and repaired,” said attorney David B. Weinstein, who represents 8701 Collins Development LLC.

“We expect a full review of the facts — and the ongoing investigation by NIST — will affirm our position,” Weinstein said in an email.