Maine
Man sentenced to 5 years on child pornography charge
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A Maine man who was once a member of a neo-Nazi group has been sentenced to five years in prison on federal child pornography charges, according to federal prosecutors.
Andrew Hazelton, 28, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in July, the Portland Press Herald reported.
The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office found in 2019 that Hazleton had sought explicit photos from a 10-year-old girl on social media. In 2021, a former employer reported Hazelton to the FBI because he feared a workplace shooting. An investigator then cited the explicit messages to the girl in a search warrant for Hazelton’s phone and uncovered dozens of downloaded videos and images depicting child pornography, prosecutors said.
Hazelton delivered a brief statement during the hearing to apologize. He said he was not in a good state of mind at the time and has focused on getting the treatment he needs. His lawyer said he suffered from mental health and substance abuse disorders.
“I only wish to learn from all this and put it behind me,” Hazelton said.
Hazelton drew attention last May when he was publicly expelled from the National Socialist Club, a white nationalist extremist group.
California
Man charged with stealing $1M in COVID benefits
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Northern California man has been charged with stealing other people’s identity to illegally obtain more than $1 million in unemployment benefits for people affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Idowu Hashim Shittu, 46, of Castro Valley was charged with three counts of fraud in a federal complaint unsealed Friday.
Prosecutors said he used the personal information of three Washington state residents to request benefits through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act from the state’s Employment Security Department.
After the ESD deposited funds into bank accounts linked to the benefits requests, a person fitting Shittu’s description was seen withdrawing the funds from ATMs in the Bay Area.
Shittu faces up to 15 years in prison for each count if convicted, and he may be ordered to pay restitution, fines and other penalties, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
He was scheduled to make a court appearance on Monday. A call to a phone number listed for Shittu went unanswered.
Illinois
Man released years after twin brother confessed to 2003 murder
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago man convicted of a 2003 murder has been granted a new trial, years after his twin brother stepped forward and confessed to the crime.
Kevin Dugar was granted bond Tuesday and assigned to a residential transition facility. Cook County authorities must decide whether to put him on trial again or drop charges.
“This case is in a very different situation than it was 20 years ago,” said attorney Ron Safer, who hopes the case is dropped. “Everybody knows much more about it.”
In 2013, a decade after the homicide, Dugar’s identical twin, Karl Smith, wrote a letter, saying he was the one who fired into a group of people, killing one and injuring another. Smith is serving decades in prison for other crimes.
A judge in 2018 said Smith wasn’t credible and refused to throw out Dugar’s conviction and 54-year prison sentence. Prosecutors said Smith had nothing to lose by speaking up for his brother.
But the Illinois Court of Appeals in 2021 overturned that decision, an opinion that led to Dugar’s eventual release.
The brothers dressed alike until eighth grade and had impersonated each other for years, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2018 when they both appeared in court. They have different last names because Smith took his mother’s maiden name.
Dugar long maintained his innocence and had turned down a plea deal that would have carried an 11-year prison sentence, far short of his subsequent 54-year term.
Alabama
State appeals to Supreme Court in redistricting fight
Alabama on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to place a hold on a ruling that will require the state to draw new congressional districts,
Lawyers for the state asked the justices to stay a preliminary injunction issued by a three-judge panel on Monday. The injunction blocks the state from using current congressional districts in the upcoming elections. The three judges had ruled Alabama’s current map likely violates the Voting Rights Act and that the state should have an additional district with a significant number of Black voters.
In the emergency filing, lawyers for the state argued that the injunction will throw state elections into chaos and require the state to draw districts based primarily on race instead of other factors.
“Without this Court’s intervention, Alabama’s only choices are effectively no choices at all: a state-drawn racially gerrymandered map or a court-drawn racially gerrymandered map,” lawyers for the state wrote. “Moreover, this overhaul of Alabama’s congressional map at this late hour would require the last-minute reassignment of hundreds of thousands of voters to new districts and could force candidates and groups seeking ballot access to obtain thousands of new signatures.”
Facing a tight timeline, Alabama asked the court to issue an administrative stay followed by a stay or an injunction pending appeal. The state’s qualifying deadline for political candidate was Friday, but the three-judge panel extended the deadline until Feb. 11 for congressional candidates.
Alabama is currently represented by one Black Democrat elected from the state’s only majority-Black district and six white Republicans elected from heavily white districts. About 27% of the state’s population is Black.
The three-judge panel wrote Monday that, “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress” under Alabama current map.
The judges wrote that any remedial plan “will need to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.”
Oklahoma
Court again rejects appeal of inmate in beheading
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has again rejected claims by a death row inmate in the beheading of a co-worker.
The court denied claims for post-conviction relief by Alton Alexander Nolen, 37, that included what his attorneys said was new information about his mental illness.
“Any evidence regarding Nolen’s current competency or mental decline has no bearing on the post-conviction proceedings,” according to the court’s decision Thursday.
The same court ruled in March 2021 that Nolen was mentally competent to stand trial.
The court ruled other claims, including juror misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct were barred from review because they could have been raised on direct appeal.
Nolen was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2014 killing of 54-year-old Colleen Hufford at Vaughan Foods. Prosecutors said Nolen killed Hufford and wounded another co-worker after being suspended from his job at the plant for making threatening statements to co-workers.
South Carolina
Man, 71, gets 12 years in prison for shooting deputy
LEXINGTON, S.C. (AP) — A 71-year-old man who shot a police officer in the head with birdshot during a standoff at a South Carolina home has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Mark Cote pleaded guilty Thursday to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, third-degree domestic violence and malicious injury to property in the September 2020 shooting, the 11th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said in a statement.
The Lexington County deputy survived, but told the judge it took an emotional toll on him, prosecutors said.
Cote appeared in court in a wheelchair after having a leg amputated and apologized through his attorney to the deputy and others, officials said.
Officers were called to Cote’s home after his wife said he attacked her for giving him prescription medicine without his knowledge, investigators said.
Cote shot the deputy after the officer ordered him to drop his shotgun, prosecutors said.
That led to a standoff with State Law Enforcement Division agents for more than 10 hours where Cote was shot and a police robot sent into get video inside the home was damaged, authorities said.
Cote will not be eligible for parole.
Oregon
State’s chief justice asks lawyers to act as public defenders
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters in an unusual public request is asking members of the State Bar to take on clients in need of public defense.
In a letter Thursday, Walters asked members to “help in representing those who are accused of a crime and cannot afford counsel,” calling it a very basic and fundamental right that Oregon is struggling to accommodate, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution affords people charged with crimes a lawyer provided by the state if they cannot afford their own.
As of Friday, over 40 people in Oregon did not have a public defender. Of those, 26 were in custody, according to the Office of Public Defense Services.
The shortage is most pronounced in the state’s largest counties including Multnomah, Marion, Lane and Washington.
A report released last week by the American Bar Association found Oregon has just 30% of the public defenders it needs for adequate representation with its current caseload.
Sandy Chung, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon, said she appreciated the chief justice’s efforts at a short-term solution and expressed concern about whether there are enough attorneys with criminal defense experience to come forward.
Prosecutors, the state Office of Public Defense Services, judges and lawmakers need to jointly address the public defender shortage, she said, adding that part of that includes diverting people from the criminal justice system.
Kentucky
Man sentenced to 43 years in violent kidnapping
LONDON, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky man has been sentenced to 43 years in federal prison for a violent kidnapping that crossed state lines.
Douglas M. Edmonson used a gun to force a victim into a car in Tennessee, brought her to Corbin, Kentucky, and repeatedly assaulted the woman over two days, according to prosecutors.
A judge called the 2018 kidnapping “degrading” and “exploitative” during Edmonson’s sentencing Friday in London, according to a media release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for Kentucky’s eastern district.
“It is sub-human to treat a person this way and to put a person in such fear for her life and to strip her, literally and figuratively, of human dignity so astonishingly,” U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier said.
Edmonson, 38, pleaded guilty to federal charges in September.
Prosecutors said Edmonson was part of a drug trafficking group and believed the victim had stolen methamphetamine. The victim was able to escape after another person in the home shot and killed themselves, according to a federal affidavit.
Edmonson used another person’s facebook account to lure the female victim, and then used a .38 revolver and a homemade pipe bomb to coax the victim’s compliance, prosecutors said. The victim was bound, blindfolded, and repeatedly assaulted during the two-day kidnapping.
Three other people were charged in the incident. Bryanna Soper, 27, of Corbin, has been sentenced to 396 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Dallas Chain Perkins, 23, of Jellico, Tennessee, and Erik Peace, 34, of Corbin, are scheduled to be sentenced in February.
