Court Digest

Missouri
Man with Santa hat robs credit union
BRIDGETON, Mo. (AP) — A man with a Santa hat and a white beard robbed a credit union in a St. Louis suburb on Saturday.

Court documents say a 58-year-old man stole $1,000 from the First Community Credit Union in Bridgeton Saturday while threatening to blow up the building. He was arrested with the cash later on Saturday, according  to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A spokesman for the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office said the man has been charged with first-degree robbery and making a terrorist threat. He was being held in lieu of a $100,000 cash bond.

But after his arrest the man was taken to a hospital because he was complaining of chest pains.

Maryland
Man sentenced to three years for bank fraud
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Maryland man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for engaging in a scheme in which he and others opened bank accounts using stolen identifications, then quickly withdrew money obtained through stolen or altered checks, federal prosecutors said.

Erwin Boateng, 32, of Glen Burnie, was sentenced on Friday to 42 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron’s office said in a news release. U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett also ordered Boateng to forfeit nearly $25,000.

According to a plea agreement, Boateng and others opened more than three dozen bank accounts using the stolen personal identifying information of other individuals or in the names of businesses. Boateng and his co-conspirators fraudulently transferred funds or deposited stolen and altered checks, then transferred the funds to other accounts or withdrew the funds in cash, the news release said.

Boateng pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy in September 2019.

Four other people have pleaded guilty to participating in the same scheme and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 13 months to three years.

Massachusetts
Doctor to pay $115K to settle improper prescribing claims
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts doctor has agreed to pay $115,000 to resolve allegations that he improperly prescribed controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice, federal prosecutors said.

Edward Driscoll, a physician who practiced at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, has agreed to the payment to resolve allegations that he violated provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, according to a statement last week from the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.

Driscoll prescribed opioids for chronic pain without conducting functional pain assessments or opioid risk assessments, according to the agreement. He rarely ordered urine drug screens and did not have consistent monthly office visits, despite prescribing opioids to patients monthly, authorities said.

“We entrust physicians to appropriately care for their patients and comply with DEA prescribing regulations, especially in the midst of a destructive opioid epidemic,” acting U. S. Attorney Nathaniel Mendell said in a statement.
“These medications are controlled for a reason and failure to abide by the rules puts patients’ safety at risk.”

Driscoll has also surrendered his Drug Enforcement Administration registration number and agreed to not seek a new DEA registration number, authorities said.

Massachusetts
Agent admits to profiting nearly $2M from real estate scheme
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts real estate agent has pleaded guilty to falsely marketing properties that were not for sale and pocketing nearly $2 million in deposit checks from potential buyers.

Michael Flavin, 38, of Quincy, admitted to two counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft in Boston federal court on Friday, Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Nathaniel Mendell’s office said. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on April 12.

Flavin’s attorney, Steven Boozang, said in an e-mail Saturday that his client has “accepted full responsibility for his actions and that “all parties have been made whole.”

Prosecutors say Flavin solicited deposits on real estate transactions by marketing numerous real estate properties that were not actually for sale.

They said Flavin executed purchase and sale agreements and received deposit checks from potential buyers, even though the property owners had not agreed to sell their properties or to sell them to those buyers.

He then forged the signatures of the sellers on the purported purchase and sale agreements, prosecutors said. From 2017 and April 2020, Flavin cashed more than 60 deposit checks totaling approximately $1.8 million.
Prosecutors say he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge of wire fraud.

North Carolina
Ex-CEO charged with embezzling $15M to fund lavish lifestyle
STATESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A former CEO has been charged with embezzling more than $15 million from her employer and using stolen money to pay for a lavish lifestyle, including travel, jewelry and family weddings, according to federal prosecutors.

Donna Osowitt Steele, of Taylorsville, North Carolina, also used stolen money to fund personal businesses run by her family, according to a court filing Friday by U.S. Attorney Dena King’s office.

Steele is charged with one count of wire fraud. Online court records don’t list an attorney for her or a date for an initial court appearance.

The company that employed Steele isn’t named in the court filing. But prosecutors said it’s a subsidiary of a foreign corporation and makes carbide products used in saw blades for the woodworking industry. The company owners live overseas, the filing says.

Steele joined the company in 1999 and was serving as its CEO when she was fired in January 2020.

Prosecutors said Steele used company credit cards, checks and wire transfers to steal company funds. She allegedly charged approximately $255,000 for stays at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, more than $500,000 for jewelry, over $200,000 for family wedding expenses and more than $100,000 for flowers.

Steele also transferred more than $350,000 in embezzled money to a high-end clothing and furniture business that she operated called Opulence by Steele, according to the court filing.

Wisconsin
Court: Audio of bail hearing missed due to error
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee County court officials have reported that an error led to them failing to record audio of a bail hearing for a man before he allegedly  drove his vehicle through a Christmas parade, killing six people.

Court officials said they only discovered that audio of the hearing was missing after reporters requested a copy of it, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Court Administrator Holly Szablewski explained that a digital audio-visual system used to stream court proceedings during the pandemic was not properly integrated with an old audio system. Audio of the court’s proceedings was not recorded for four days due to the error.

Darrell Brooks Jr. posted a $1,000 bail five days before prosecutors say he drove his SUV through the packed parade route in Waukesha on Nov. 21, killing five adults and one child and injuring about 60 other people.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, has been under intense criticism for the bail recommendation in a domestic violence case. He has called the bail recommendation from his office “inappropriately low” given the circumstances of the crimes Brooks was facing and his prior history.

Tennessee
Security guard indicted in gas station shooting
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A white security guard has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black man at a Memphis gas station in August.

Court records show that Gregory Livingston has been indicted for the killing of Alvin Motley Jr. in a dispute over loud music in east Memphis on Aug. 7, The Commercial Appeal reports.

Motley was a passenger in a car at a Kroger gas station when Livingston approached and engaged in a conversation that prosecutors said steadily escalated, according to the documents. Subsequently, as Motley walked toward Livingston during the argument and suggested they discuss the matter “like men,” Livingston drew his firearm and fired a single shot into Motley’s chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a prior court hearing, Livingston’s attorneys cited an account from one witness that Motley had threatened Livingston physically during the altercation, according to the newspaper.


Missouri
Man convicted of 15 illegal gun sales
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City man has been convicted of illegally selling 15 guns, including some that have been linked to shootings.

Federal prosecutors said 27-year-old Mickael Oliver will face at least seven years in prison when he is sentenced.

Prosecutors said four of the guns Oliver or his associates sold were stolen, and at least one of the guns was sold to a convicted felon. Three other Kansas City-area residents were charged in connection to the case, and two of them have already been sentenced to prison.

Oliver was charged after he illegally sold guns to a confidential informant who had been working with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Some of the guns Oliver sold have been connected to shootings in the Kansas City area although he hasn’t been charged in those shootings.

Virginia
Woman sentenced to 10 years in prison for $1.5M fraud plot
ABINGDON, Va. (AP) — A Virginia woman who pleaded guilty to plotting to defraud the government out of more than $1.5 million in pandemic-related unemployment benefits has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution, federal prosecutors said.

Farren Gaddis Ricketts, 31, of Jonesville, and her co-conspirators devised a scheme to collect personal identification information and then submit unemployment claims to the Virginia Employment Commission website for individuals who were ineligible to receive pandemic unemployment benefits, including inmates in state prisons, according to a news release from the U.S. Justice Department.

Court documents said Ricketts registered a business with the Virginia State Corporation Commission and advertised it as a financial services company that helped with filing pandemic unemployment claims.

In addition to receiving unemployment benefits herself, Ricketts charged fees to over 120 bogus clients for the service of filing their fraudulent claims, prosecutors said.

Between May 2020 and February 2021, Ricketts and her co-conspirators filed more than 150 fraudulent claims for pandemic unemployment benefits, the news release said. For many of these filings, Ricketts created fraudulent documents to support the claims, including fraudulent IRS forms purporting to show pre-pandemic income.